Earth Science Exam 2 Terms & Definitions Study Set

Which of the following is not an agent of erosion?

Heat

What is the most important agent of chemical weathering?

Water

Which is the most resistive to chemical weathering?

Quartz

Which minerals are the main constituents in most sedimentary rocks?

Quartz and clay minerals

During your vocation trip, you made an observation of a river bed full of rocks. You found a lot of round and well sorted pebbles but no conglomerates and no sands and clays. You wonder what was the depositional environment?

High energy but far from the weathering site

Detrital (clastic) rock is an important sedimentary rock on earth. What is the proper sequence of its formation?

weathering, erosion, transportation, deposition, compaction, and cementation

Which environment would be likely to produce a black shale?

swamp

Which rock type, or combination of rock types, makes up the majority of Earth's outermost solid surface?

Sedimentary rocks

During a field trip, you and your friends found a large piece of bone fossil buried in thick sediments. Applying your geological knowledge of relative dating, you suspected the sediments to be in the late Pleistocene epoch. Out of curiosity, you want to spend some money to have the fossil dated accurately. Which is the best lab you should consider?

A lab specialized in radiocarbon dating

Which is the most abundant chemical sedimentary rock?

limestone

------ processes, such as evaporation or precipitation, can precipitate chemical sediments

Inorganic

------- is the process where calcium ions in limestone are replaced with magnesium or small amounts of iron

Dolomitization

The primary basis for classifying detrital rocks is -----. Whereas the primary basis for classifying chemical rocks is -----

particle size; mineral composition

Which of the following represents the single most common and characteristic structures in sedimentary rocks

strata

Organic matter is usually deposited and found in clay-rich shale because-----

Both clay and organic matter have similar density closer to water than other sediments and can only deposit in low-energy quiet environments

----- are primary reservoirs of groundwater

sediments and sedimentary rocks

metamorphism can cause a rock to be intricately folded when the rock is ---- and under ----

solid at elevated temperature; elevated differential pressures

Folds form in ------- temperature-------- pressure environments. Faults form in ------ temperature------ pressure environments

-high, high

-low, high

You are sitting in class when your professor begins talking about a dome with the inner layers dating back to the Tertiary and its outer layers dating back to the Permian. You immediately know this professor is wrong. What is your evidence?

Domes have the oldest layers in the middle, not the youngest

You are a seismologist and are driving out to a location where a fault has recently shifted. When you arrive at the location, you see that the road you are driving on was constructed across the fault line. Because of slippage along the fault, the road ahead has been shifted to the left by 20 feet. What kind of fault is present?

left-lateral strike-slip

You were watching TV with a friend when there is a special bulletin about an earthquake in Alaska. The news anchor reports that the epicenter of the earthquake is 56 miles southeast of Sand Point. How would you explain the definition of the epicenter to your geologically impaired friend?

the location on earth's surface directly above the point of initial rupture zone

Which seismic waves released during an earthquake are the most destructive?

surface waves

What a mineral phase change?

atoms in a mineral are rearranged into a denser and more stable structure

Which of the following scenarios would likely result in the development of a passive continental margin?

Continental blocks rifting apart and becoming separated by seafloor spreading

Put the four regions of a subduction zone in order from the convergent boundary landward toward the continental interior

Deep-ocean trench, forearc region, volcanic arc, back-arc region

You were a team leader on a geologic field trip. All of you felt very tired after spending the whole day to describe the outcrops and date the rocks using the principles of relative dating and some fossil records you could possibly find in the sedimentary rocks. You though that you could confidently date the ages of the rocks and were ready to call of the trip. However, Dave firmly insisted to spend another hour to drill and collect samples of igneous rocks. You felt a bit annoyed first but quickly agreed. Why did Dave so adamantly want to get igneous rock samples?

because the most reliable radiometrical dating is to use datable fresh igneous rock samples

In which of the following rocks would you be likely to see more fractures and faults than other rocks under the same subsurface temperature and pressure conditions?

Sandstone

You and your friends made a field trip. During the trip , your geological knowledge enabled you to observe and identify shale and basalt in the rock mass and metamorphic rocks slate, schist, gneiss, greenschist and granulite. You immediately announced your discovery to your friends that the rocks underwent ------ metamorphism under the tectonic setting of ------

Regional; a convergent boundary like a continent-continent collision

During a field trip with your friends, you found a large piece of bone fossil. After further rigorous numerical dating and research with paleontologists, you were excited by the news that you would co-author a scientific paper on your discovery of the earliest known dinosaur of about 250 million years ago! Using the calendar year analog as if we compress the 4.6 billion years of Earth history into a single year, what is the date of the earliest known dinosaur you discovered?

December 11

the Challenger Deep has previously been measured to have a depth of about 12,000.00meters. You have been sent to the part of the Pacific Ocean to verify this depth with and echo sounder. Assuming that Depth =(echo travel time * 1,500 m/sec)/2, approximately how many seconds should it take for the sound wave to leave your ship, strike the bottom of the Challenger Deep, and return if the depth is correct?

16 seconds