Unit 10 Flashcards
What happens with volcanic massive sulfide hydrothermal vents?
High temp water and gas is expelled from the plate boundaries, within the gas and water there are metals that cool almost instantaneously on the ocean floor.
What are porphyry deposits?
From around cooling felsic (Iron rich) magma stock in the upper continental crust metals in the surrounding rock begin to dissolve and concentrate into metal rich hoit water, Basically just concentrates the metal in one area. Just dine bt ground water.
What are epithermal vein deposits?
they from from the same metal rich fluids in porphyry deposits these are just closer to the surface
Banded Iron formation
Iron rich rock deposits that formed during the great oxidation which was when oxygen in the atmosphere that turned it from soluble into insoluble, iron precipitated out of ocean water creating iron rich sediments
What are Alberta’s rocky mountains primary made from?
Limestone
What is the one gemstone only made from one element?
Diamonds, are made from only carbon. it is the strongest material on earth
Where do diamond form?
They require a lot of pressure and heat so they are very deep in the mantle
how do diamonds make it back to the crust?
Volcanic eruptions called kimberlites, they originate in the mantle and not the crust =, but the crust has now gotten to thick and cold so we don’t see kimberlites forming anymore.
How to find kimberlite mines?
a glacier will go over the kimberlite and pick up some of the particles as it moves. once the glacier melts it will leave behind “breadcrumbs” to follow back to the original site.
Fossil fuels
Oil, gas and coal. which contain organic carbon. Organic Carbon comes from marine algae, and animal soft parts. Usually stored in sedimentary rocks
How does coal from?
usually on swampy lands, dead vegetation accumulates, it remains there for over 100 years which turn it into peat. peat is subjected to increase heat and pressure which turns it into coal.
More carbon means?
more energy potential
Coal process
Peat –> Lignite (25-35% Carbon) –> bituminous (35-85%) Carbon –> anthracite (Greater than 85%)
oil and gas
usually on the ocean floor, AN accumulation of dead organisms that become buried (Must be low to no oxygen) Organic matter heats up, converts to oil and then gas. stored underground in sedimentary rocks.
Where does oil and gas want to move?
From high pressure to low pressure, they migrate towards the land surface. they will move until they are trapped by an impermeable layer
Components of fossil fuel reservoirs?
Source rock (the rock with organic matter), the reservoir (the rock with the pore space that allows the fluid to be stored), the migration path (allows the oil to move from high to low pressure from the source rock to the reservoir), Cap rock (a layer that the oil and gas cannot pass)
Do you always have oil and gas together?
No, gas is created deeper than oil so you may inly drill into oil and water, or oil, gas and water
stratigraphic traps
related to the compositional layering of the rocks, (impermeable stone, permeable stone, impermeable stone)
Structural traps?
related to the deformation of rocks below the surface (folding and faulting
Anticline trap?
fluid get trapped at the peak of an anticline by an overlying rock cap
Fault trap?
Units of oil and gas pushed it against a fault
Conventional reservoir?
fossil fuel is stored in stratigraphic and or structural traps (normal traps that form normally), they have source rock migration path, reservoir, trap and cap rock.
Unconventional reservoir?
fossil fuel stored in source rock, so source rock is reservoir as well. they are impermeable.
Fracking
process of injecting liquid at super high pressure into the rock. This creates permeability
What is climate forcing?
condition change that give the climate a push towards warmer or colder climate.
Feedbacks due to climate forcing
positive feedback exaggerated the change where as negative feedback suppresses the change
Greenhouse gases
let sunlight pass through but stop it from leaving the atmosphere. Important but can be dangerous when too much of it.
Natural climate forcing
The sun is producing more energy now than what it did. because of this our atmosphere is evolving so we get less of a warming affect than we did
Gaia hypothesis
the theory that organisms evolve in ways that contribute to ensuring their environment remains habitable
Plate tectonics
Position of the continents affect major glacial periods. Movement of the continents, redirect, global oceanic, circular patterns.
Thermohaline circulation
Ocean currents, fluctuate, overtime change in the thermohaline circulation in the golf stream, affect climate continent, shift, the oceanic circulation, belt changes shape
M what is the Milanković cycle?
Basically, how earths movement in the solar system affects earths climate
What are the three things that affect the Milanković cycle?
Eccentricity, obliquity and precession, also known as orbital, forcing
What is eccentricity?
The shape of earths orbit around the sun, earths orbit is elliptical, and it becomes more elliptical as the sun moves away from the centre
What is obliquity?
The angle earths axis is tilted with respect to the orbital plane around the sun
What is precession?
The direction earth axis of rotation is pointed
What does it mean when the northern hemisphere is pointed towards the sun when it’s further away?
Cooler summers and reverse for hot summers, so pointed towards the sun when it’s closer would be hot summers
Anthropogenic climate change
This happened right after the industrial revolution, when humans first began burning fossil fuels and released massive amounts of carbon into the atmosphere
How do we know what earths climate was in the past?
By using science, proxies, science proxies are preserved physical characteristics of the past that stand in for direct meteorological measurements which allows scientist to reconstruct climatic conditions through earth history
Two main Oxygen isotopes
O16 and O18, (16 is lighter) As well as they are separated by natural process, called fractionalization
What is fractionalization?
Evaporation and ice ice growth remove O16 over O18 which is heavier. Glaciers will have more O16 than ocean water
What are ice cores?
These are the cores of glacial ice. We can track climate change year by year by looking at the O16 to O18 ratio
Seafloor, sediment cores
Sediment cores, have the most continuous data set to track climate change, marine cinnamons are made out of CaCO3 skeletons. Oxygen in CaCO3 records O18.O16. And shells have a higher O18.O16 in cold climates
What is one of the easiest ways to detect climate change?
Sea level rise this occurs because warm water expands as it heated, which causes glaciers to melt
Tropical storms
Tropical storms gain energy from evaporation of warm sea water in low latitudes as temperature rises, so does the intensity of storm, warm air hold more water vapour
Define a heat wave
A period of unusually hot weather lasting more than two days
What climates are best for pests?
Warmer climates are more habitable cold temperatures kill insects
