Midterm 2 Flashcards
Almost all intermediate to deep focus earthquakes occur along _____ plate boundaries.
Convergent
James Hutton formulated the Principle of
___ -_____ relationships.
Cross-Cutting
The Alberta oilsands found in the McMurray formation, a regional sandstone deposited in a large epeiric seaway which extended from the Arctic Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico during the _____ Era and the _____ Period.
Mesozoic Era
Cretaceous Period
Contact metamorphism results when ____ or _____ alters the surrounding country rock.
lava OR magma
The ____ _____ forms the core of North America and has been tectonically _____ during the Phanerozoic.
Canadian Shield, Inactive
The supercontinent that formed near the end of the Paleozoic from an assembling of all the continents was called _____.
Pangea
Earthquakes are vibrations caused by the sudden release of ____, usually along a ______ ______.
energy, fault margin
Areas of buried shield rock and younger sedimentary platform cover are collectively called ____, which are tectonically _____.
cratons, stable
The _______, highly skilled hunters and cave painters, lived from about 35,000 to 10,000 years ago, and were successors of the ____.
Cro-magnon, neanderthals
According to the elastic rebound theory rocks will :
a. Rocks will bend before they break
b. snap back into their original shape after faulting
c. break when their capacity to store energy of deformation has been exceeded
d. bend before they break AND snap back to original shape after faulting.
E. ALL OF THE ABOVE
WHich of the following is not a factor affecting earthquake intensity?
e. the time elapsed since the last earthquake
The min. number of seismographs needed to determine an earthquakes epicenter is?
C. 3
The Precambrian comprises what % of geologic time?
b. 88%
During the Archean, approximately how long was the length of a day on Earth?
b. 10 hours
ALL of the following make it difficult to determine the Precambrian history of earth, except one choice which is untrue. Which one is untrue?
A. There is Precambrian rocks ONLY on THREE continents.
Found on more than only three continents
What factor(s) led to the enormous scale of banded iron deposition during the Proterozoic?
a. abundance of dissolved iron in seawater
b. increase in photosynthesizing bacteria
c. chemical affinity of iron to combine available oxygen
d. All of the above
All of these
The Archean atmosphere could be described as what?
d. Oxygen deficient
Which of the following evolutionary trends characterize primates?
a. increase in brain size
b. change in overall skeletal structures
c. stereoscopic vision
d. grasping hands with opposable thumbs
E. ALL OF THESE
Which of the following does NOT apply to trilobites?
a. abundant in modern oceans
extinct
How did ordovician reefs differ from those of the cambrian?
a. Cambrian reefs were generally small
b Cambrian reefs were built primarily of Archeocyathids
c. Ordovician reefs represent a diverse community of organisms
d. Ordovician reefs were dominated by suspension feeders
E. ALL OF THESE
Because of the nature of the world-wide climatic conditions in the Mesozoic, organisms _____.
b. Could occupy extensive geographic regions.
A seismic risk map can be used to
B. Choose locations to avoid for hospitals and other important buildings.
What was the large landmass composed mostly of {modern} North America and Greenland that evolved during the Proterozoic Eon?
D. Laurentia
The time of the greatest post- Paleozoic indundation of the craton occurred during which geologic period?
Cretaceous
Rocks of the shield are primarily ___ and__
igneous and metamorphic
What were the general climatic conditions on the Paleozoic supercontinent (pangea)?
arid to semiarid
The orogeny, which effected the northern Appalachians during the Late Silurian to the ned of the Devonian, is known as the
Acadian Orogeny
What desirable type of coal is mostly found in the Appalachian region?
anthracite
The evolution of jaws played an important role in the evolution of fish because it allowed them to do what?
a. diversify feeding styles
b. increase oxygen consumption
c. increase food consumption
d. increase oxygen and food consumption
E. ALL OF THE ABOVE
In addition to expansion of reptile species during the Mesozoic, other life groups that showed an increase in diversity include which of the following?
a. marine invertebrates
b. plants
c. mammals
d. birds
E. ALL OF THESE
During the Mesozoic, climatic variation on Earth could be described as ______
c. lacking great north-south variation
T/F: According to elastic rebound theory, rocks deform and bend. When their internal strength is exceeded they rupture. This energy release is called and earthquake.
T
T/F: The seccond major seismic belt, accounting for 15% of all earthquakes is the Mediterranean- Asiatic belt.
T
T/F: The modified Mercalli scale is a quantitative measure of an earthquake’s intensity
F
T/F: The opening of large crevasses that open up and swallow people is a significant source of danger created by earthquakes
F
T/F: Landslides and ground liquefication are significant sources of danger created by earthquakes
T
T/F: We know that the mantle is not molten because P- waves can travel through it
F
T/F: A vertical sequence of transgressive and regressive facies records the rise and fall of sea level.
T
T/F: Metamorphic rocks are very common in the crystalline basement rocks of shields.
T
T/F: Metamorphic rocks can indicate the chemical changes that have occurred at various depths
T
T/F: Gneiss is a high grade metamorphic rock that is streaked or has segregated bands of light and dark minerals
T
T/F: The presence of thick sections of carbonate and sandstone indicated that Archean continents had well developed shelf environments
F
T/F: The rapid rate of plate motion was probably the most important factor in rapid continental growth in the late Archean
T
T/F: The enormous amount of banded iron formation deposited during the period of 2.5 to 2.0 million years ago signifies a transition from oxidizing to reducing atmosphere on Earth
F
T/F: The oldest stromatolites are 4.1 billion years old.
F
T/F: Proterozoic layered igneous intrusions are the world’s major source of chrome and platinum
T
T/F: Polar ice caps existed through most of the cambrian
F
T/F: Devonian mass extinctions were caused by the global cooling that made the environment unfavourable for the widespread reef organisms of the time period
T
T/F: Trilobites, an organism abundant in the Early Paleozoic and less abundant in the Late Paleozoic greatly flourished after the Permian extinction
F
T/F: The permian extinction was unequivocally related to an extraterrestrial impact
F
T/F: Lung-fish are important in the fossil record because amphibians evolved from them.
F
T/F: More species went extinct at the end of the Permian than at the end of the Mesozoic
T (Mesozoic: think dinosaurs)
T/F: Most of the burrowing organisms of the Mesozoic marine community were soft bodied
T
T/F: The cretaceous extinction event was uniformly disastrous to all marine and non marine organisms
F
T/F: The cordilleran mobile belt was the site of the antler orgeny, a minor Devonian orogeny, during which deep water sediments were thrust eastward over shallow water sediments.
T
T/F: The rate of plate motion was probably slower in the Archean
F
T/F: Organisms that comprised reef complexes remained virtually unchanged during the Paleozoic
F
T/F: The amalgamation of Pangea may have played an important role in the Permian extinction because the shallow marine environment was greatly reduced
T
T/F: Ammonites were one of the 3 major groups of Mesozoic marine fauna to go extinct at the end of the Cretaceous
T
T/F: Mesozoic birds are similar to Cenozoic birds in that they both have teeth
F
T/F: Mammals attained a high degree of diversity and abundance during the Mesozoic
F
T/F: The first Mesozoic mammals were very distinctive from their ancestral reptiles
F (would not be first because there is not variation yet)
T/F: There is evidence that some of the organisms that went extinct at the end of the Cretaceous were already beginning to decline in population strength.
T
T/F: The Permian extinction may have been caused by interrelated consequences of the amalgamation of Pangea and global climate change.
T
