Geology Final Exam Flashcards
The _____ is thought to be a liquid, metallic region in the Earth’s interior.
outer core
What is the source of the energy that powers the Earth’s system?
The Sun & heat from the Earth’s interior
The asthenosphere is actually a part of the Earth’s_____.
mantle
Much of the original free oxygen in the atmosphere combined with iron dissolved in water to become iron oxide. True or False
True
Earth’s primitive atmosphere evolved from gases ________________
expelled from within
A ______ system is one in which energy moves freely in and out, but no matter enters or leaves the system.
closed
Which of the following energy sources is thought to drive the lateral motions of Earth’s lithospheric plates?
Export of heat from deep in the mantle to the top of the asthenosphere.
Bowen’s reaction series predics the sizes of the different mineral grains that grow from crystallizing magmas. True or False
False
Assimilation involves _________________
incorporation of the surrounding host rock into magma
Crystal settling involves
crystals sinking to the bottom of a magma chamber.
Olivine and quartz are commonly found together in the same igneous rock. True or False
False
Which of the following minerals is a silicate?
Feldspar
Pegmatites are composed of unusually tiny crystals. They are generally rich in diamonds. True or False
False
The west coast of South America is a ________ plate boundary?
Convergent
New oceanic crust and lithosphere are formed at
divergent boundaries by submarine eruptions and intrusions of basaltic magma.
Mount St. Helens and the other Cascade volcanoes are…….
young, active stratovolcanoes built on a continental margin above a sinking slab of oceanic lithosphere.
Which of the following statements apply to the asthensophere, but not the lithosphere?
Zone in the upper mantle that deforms by plastic flowage.
Deep ocean trenches are surficial evidence for…
sinking of oceanic lithosphere into the mantle at a subduction zone.
The modern-day Red Sea is explained by plate tectonics theory because it is a _______.
Rift Zone
The _____ _____ is a logical evolutionary analog of the African Rift Valleys ten million years from now.
Red Sea
Why is there no sea floor from over 180 million years?
Subduction
Where is the youngest sea floor?
Mid Ocean Ridge
_________ refers to the tendency of foundation material to lose its internal cohesion and fail mechanically during earthquake shaking.
Liquefaction
The Mercalli Scale is a scale from _____ to _____
I to XII
When an earthquake occurs energy radiates in all directions from its source. The source is also called ______
Focus
Approximately how much more energy is released in a 6.5 Richter magnitude earthquake than in one with magnitude 5.5?
30 times
Earthquakes near Memphis happen along a plate boundary.
False
The lithosphere is defined as ________
a ridgid layer of crustal and mantle material.
The mantle is composed mainly of metallic iron with small amounts of magnesium silicate minerals.
True
Continental crust is generally thicker than oceanic crust.
True
The asthenosphere is located in the ______ _______.
Upper Mantle
Assume that water filling a crack in a rock undergoes cycles of freezing and melting. Which of the following statements is true?
Water expands as it freezes, causing the crack walls to be pushed apart
Feldspars commonly decompose during weathering to clay materials, silica, and soluble constituents.
True
Sheeting is mainly a process of mechanical weathering.
True
According to most scientists, the universe was “born” more than __ ______ years ago.
13 billion
Igneous rocks solidify from ______ rock
Molten
The Marianas Trench - the deepest place in the ocean - is located at a _________ plate boundary.
convergent
As volcanic hazards go, “perhaps the greatest threat to life are _______ _______”.
pyroclastic flows
While attempting to service a GPS site in ______ _______ (UT), Dr. Abolins succeeded in getting a snowmobile stuck in the snow.
Wasatch Range
Since the 1811-1812 earthquakes, there have been no earthquakes with a magnitude of 6 or greater in the New Madrid Seismic Zone.
False
About fifteen years ago, the Richter scale replaced the Earthquake magnitude scale for most purposes. Today, the USGS commonly uses the Richter scale to communicate the “strength” or “size” of an earthquake to the public.
False
The slowest seismic wave is the _____ wave.
surface
Bangladesh is far from any tectonic plate boundaries, but earthquakes happen there anyways.
False
If you wanted to collect andesite samples, you would visit a ________ ______.
composite cone
The law of superposition states that younger features cut across older features.
False.
____ author of the first geology textbook.
Lyell
______ theory of plate tectonics
Wilson
The Paleozoic Era began ___ ______ years ago.
542 million
Oxidation involves the dissolution of certain minerals by slightly acidic water.
False
Landslides happen in some hilly areas of Middle Tennessee in part because of relatively minor quantities of ____.
shale
_____ describes the total sediment load transported by a stream.
Capacity
Which one of the following could not have significantly affected climactic variations and advances and retreats of ice sheets during the Pleistocene epoch?
Movements of Earth’s tectonic plates
A ______ _______ is an irregular, usually thin layer laid down by a retreating glacier.
ground moraine
A ____ is an intermittent stream channel in the dry land areas of western United States.
wash
Desert pavement is the result of _____.
reflation
Inselbergs are ________________________.
bedrock hills in a highly eroded desert landscape
At the end of Chapter 13 under the heading “Energy Resources”, Tarbuck and Lutgens briefly describe oil, natural gas, and ___ ______, as seafloor resources.
gas hydrates
At the end of Chapter 13 under the heading “Other Resources”, Tarbuck and Lutgens briefly describe sand, gravel, evaporative salts, and ____________ _______, as sea floor resources.
manganese nodules
Waves begin to “feel bottom” when the depth of the water is equal to ________________
one-half the wavelength
The movement of water within the surf zone that parallels the shore is termed the _______ _______.
longshore current
Where did Dr. Abolins study glaciers while he was an undergraduate? What are some of the (glacial) things he saw there?
Alaska
What is a glacier?
A thick mass of ice that forms over land from the compaction and recystallization of snow and shows evidence of past or present flow
Distinguish between valley and alpine glaciers, on one hand, and ice sheets or continental glaciers, on the other.
Valley/Alpine form in mountains
Ice Sheets/Continental Glaciers are large in scale.
What is the zone of accumulation and what is the zone of wastage? How are they involved in the advance or retreat of a glacier?
Zone of Accumulation is the area where a glacier forms. Zone of Wastage is the area where there is a net loss due to melting.
What is a glacial trough?
U Shaped
What is a cirque?
At the head of the landform
What is arete?
Sharp ridge lines between valleys
What is a horn?
Rugged
What is a glacial drift?
All sediments of glacial orgin
What is a till?
Material that is deposited by ice. Unsorted
What is stratified drift?
Sediment deposited by meltwater
Open land with rocks and no trees is an _______
Outwash Plain
______ was a block of ice that melted and filled with rain.
Kettle
What does most of the erosion in the desert?
Water
What are alluvial fans?
A fan or cone-shaped deposit of sediment crossed and built up by streams or debris flows.
What are bajadas?
Formed by the lateral merging and blending of a series of alluvial fans.
What are inselbergs?
An isolated hill, knob, ridge, outcrop, or small mountain that rises abruptly from a gently sloping or virtually level surrounding plain.
What is deflation and how does it lead to the formation of desert pavement?
Wind picks up loose material and moves it around on the ground.
What is loess?
Deposits of windblown silt.
What are cross beds?
Sloping layers of sand in the dunes.
What percentage of the world is land?
29%
Historically, from which part of the sea floor have humans extracted oil and gas? What did Dr. Abolins describe as a “new frontier” in offshore oil exploration?
Continental Shelf
What is the driving force behind deep ocean currents?
Wind
What is the driving behind tides?
The Moon
Where do turbidity currents happen? What are they?
Continental Margin. Dense mixture of water & sediments that flow along the seafloor.
What is upwelling?
Cold water rises from deeper layers that brings greater concentrations of dissolved nutrients to the surface. This mostly happens on the west coast of continents.
What factors influence the timing and height of the tides?
Elevation of ocean surface, Moon, and wind.
What is the “kernel of truth” buried deep, deep, deep within the tall tale that is the movie “The Day After Tomorrow”?
Thermohaline Circulation.
What are the pycnocline and thermocline?
Deep Zone & Surface Layer in the Surface Mix Zone.
What are the three layers of the ocean?
Continental Shelf, Continental Slope, and Continental Rise
Define weather and climate
Weather: Short period of time.
Climate: Long period of time
What are the layers of the atmosphere in order from bottom to top and describe them
Troposphere: We live here!
Stratosphere: Ozone Layer.
Mesosphere
Thermosphere: Little air, home to Aurora
The Stupid Mom Tries
What gases make up air? Which is most abundant? Which is the second most abundant?
Nitrogen, Oxygen, and Carbon Dioxie. Nitrogen is most abundant, Oxygen is second.
Distinguish between the Bergeron process and the collision-coalescence process. Which is more important in the tropics and which is more important here at middle latitudes?
Bergeron is more important here and Collision-Coalescence is more important in the tropics.
What is relative humidity?
Ratio of the air’s actual water vapor content compared with the amount of water vapor required for saturation at that temperature.
What is glaze?
When rain freezes when it touches the ground
What is rime?
aka Black Ice
Freezing of supercooled fog
What factors influence the direction and speed of surface winds? What factors influence the direction and speed of high altitude winds?
Earth’s rotation & friction.
What is the jet stream?
A river of air at a high altitude and high velocity
Describe the wind belts.
Polar Easterlies, Westerlies (us), and Trade Winds/Tropical Easterlies.
What is an air mass?
A large body of air with similar temperatures and move and affect a large portion of the continent.
Describe the location, temperature, and moisture content of the major air masses responsible for weather in Tennessee.
We are in the Westerlies Belt, in the Troposphere,
Describe a cyclone
Center of low pressure, inward (convergence), spin counterclockwise
Describe an anticyclone
Center of high pressure, divergence, spin clockwise, produce fair weather
Describe symbols used to represent warm and cold fronts on a weather map
Warm Front: Line with semicircles.
Cold Front: Triangles.
Describe what Dr. Abolins said about the Weisman and Saginor CNN opinion pieces.
Weisman, Dr. Abolins does NOT agree with.
Saginor, no connection between climate change & tectonic activity.
Describe a cold front
Replaces warm air, moves faster than warm, more violent
Describe a warm front
Replaces cooler air, slow, light-to-moderate precipitation
Describe an occluded front
Active cold front over takes warm front, cold air wedges the warm air upwards
Describe a stationary front
Flow of air on both sides of the front is almost parallel to the line of the front
Within the westerlies belt, storm systems usually move ______ to ______
West to East
Thunderclouds are associated with ________ fronts.
Cold
Tropical masses are _______.
Warm
Maritime masses are ______
Humid
Between 1970 and 2002, emissions of the six principal pollutants __________ by 48 percent.
were cut
The fall equinox in the Southern Hemisphere occurs on this date.
March 21
Most climate scientists think global warming is largely caused by chlorofluorocarbons (CFC’s) produced by people.
False
The magnitude of a temperature increase due to greenhouse warming will probably be smallest in the ________.
tropics
Which one of the following statements is true about the equinoxes?
Days and nights are equal in length everywhere.
Distance variations between Earth and the Sun are very important in understanding seasonal temperature variations. For example, summer happens when the Earth is closer to the Sun.
False
Secondary pollutants are produced by secondary manufacturing processes and are emitted directly from identifiable sources (e.g., factory stacks).
False
What factors influence the timing and height of the tides?
Configuration of the ocean basin
Shape of the coastline
Water depth near shore
