EAE1011 Test 3 Flashcards
As The flux of radiation increases:
its average wavelength decreases with the temperature of the body.
A satellite observes the longwave radiation emitted by the Earth from its orbit in space. At a given time it passes from a region with clear skies to a region with thick cloud. What happens to the longwave radiation measured by the satellite
The longwave radiation decreases because the cloud top is colder and therefore emits less radiation than the surface below.
What common gases are not greenhouse gases?
- Oxygen
- Argon
- Nitrogen
What common gases are greenhouse gases?
- Water vapour
- Methane
- Nitrous oxide
- CO₂
Where is insolation highest year round?
Averaged over the year, insolation at the top of the atmosphere is highest over the equator
Where is insolation highest on a given day?
The total amount of insolation at the top of the atmosphere on a given day depends on where it the Earth is in its annual orbit.
Imagine a strong wind blowing towards a mountain range, for example, westerly winds hitting the Great Dividing Range. Which of the following statements describe what happens?
Rising air parcels on the windward side of the mountains cool, making rainfall more likely., The windward side of the mountains are more likely to experience large amounts of clouds.
Suppose an air parcel is moving northwards over Melbourne. Which direction will it be accelerated by the Coriolis force?
Towards the west.
Where does the Hadley Cell appear what does it cause and what kind of pressure system is it?
In the Hadley Circulation air rises near the equator, leading to clouds and rainfall there., High pressure systems at subtropical latitudes form as part of the Hadley Circulation.
The temperature of the atmosphere decreases with height by roughly 7 degrees per kilometre. Assuming a surface temperature of 20 degrees Celsius, what would be the approximate temperature at the top of a Himalayan mountain of 8km height?
-36 degrees C
What causes the formation of clouds and rain
Most clouds and rain are the result of air rising in the atmosphere., Clouds and rain form from water vapour.
The first record of animals (‘metazoans’) in the fossil record is from _______ rocks. These advanced forms of life are from marine sedimentary deposits in Australia and many other places globally.”
Precambrian
When was ‘The Age of Mammals’?
Cenozoic
What are examples of exceptional fossil and subfossil preservation, in the category of ‘Unaltered fossil remains’?
- Dipteran (fly) trapped in amber
- Ammonite with mother-of-pearl preserved in a concretion (nodule)
- Tissue and hair from a woolly mammoth
The oldest evolutionary fauna of the Phanerozoic Eon is the __________ Evolutionary Fauna, which saw an explosion in terms of biodiversity of shelled forms in the marine geologic archive.”
Cambrian Evolutionary Fauna
What are 3 examples of trace fossil examples?
- What are 3 examples of trace fossil examples? Perfectly symmetrical drill hole in a large Cretaceous clam (bivalve)
- Insect damage on an Antarctic Southern Beech leaf
- Coprolite (faeces) from a fossil crocodile
Would most or all of A small plant-eating (herbivorous) dinosaur, living in a Mesozoic polar, mountainous environment, perishes from natural causes likely be preserved?
No the transportation of bones in a high energy mountain sedimentary environment would result in this fossil being disarticulated and broken up.
It is estimated by palaeontologists that only _________ % of all ancient life (i.e. plants, animals, microorganisms) has been recovered thus far from sedimentary deposits around the world. This percentage tells us that many preservation factors are at play, attesting to the sobering fact that becoming a fossil is quite rare!
0.1%
The great pageant of life through the ages from Precambrian to Recent, dating back 3.77 Ga (billion) years, has been dealt some severe blows in terms of biodiversity loss. The greatest ever mass extinction event in the history of life occurred at the end of the _______ Period, when up to 95% of all organisms on the planet became extinct. Fortunately, not every species was exterminated, and life was able to rebound, albeit slowly over millions of years, to what we see today.
Permian
Following on from our discussions of mass extinctions, non-avian dinosaurs (but not birds, which remember, are now considered dinosaurs) such as Tyrannosaurus and Triceratops, died out at the end of the ____________ Period, which coincided with a major impact of a huge chunk of rock some 10 km across, creating a hole 30 km deep and up to 200 km across.
Cretaceous
The Earth formed approximately:
4.5 billion years ago.
The difference between relative and absolute dating is:
Absolute dating gives us the numerical age of something, relative dating gives us the age of it with respect to something else. Relative dating tells us that you are younger than your parents, while absolute dating tells us the day on which you were born.
The relative geologic time scale tells us the relative ages of the Earth’s history. Which of the following is the correct order of the Periods in the Mesozoic Era, from oldest to youngest?
Triassic, Jurassic, Cretaceous.
