ESS DCCC Final

T or F: The North American Plate and the Eurasian Plate are moving apart at about the same rate that fingernails grow.

True

T or F: The heat in the interior of the Earth is largely derived from nuclear reactions.

True

Convergent boundaries are where

Two plates are colliding

In general, the worst and most numerous earthquakes occur along ________ boundaries.

convergent

T or F: The Hawaiian islands are the result of a hot spot plume of magma.

True

When an earthquake occurs, the first seismic waves to arrive are the ___ waves.

P

An increase of one in the Richter Magnitude scale (for example from a 7 to an 8) means a ___-fold increase in the energy of the earthquake.

32

The best action if you are caught in an earthquake while indoors is to _______________.

curl in in fetal position near a sturdy object

T or F: Buildings that use cross-bracing and base isolation are resistant to earthquakes.

True

T or F: Wet ground can transmit seismic waves through the process of liquifaction.

True

T or F: Avalanches are the fastest form of mass movement.

True

Creep can be difficult to notice because ____________.

the land moves too slowly to be seen

Mass movement refers to ______________.

the movement of earth materials downslope due to gravity

T or F: Slope is not a significant factor in mass movement.

False

T or F: Vegetation can help hold materials in place and slow mass movement.

True

T or F: Humans over-steepening slopes can cause mass movement events.

True

T or F: Water content can be a significant factor in mass movement events.

True

T or F: Bent trees can be a sign of soil creep.

True

T or F: Isostacy can help explain why beaches in Maine have cliffs while beaches in Delaware do not.

True

T or F: Earthquakes and mass movement events are unrelated.

False

In scientific method, a theory is ______________

a hypothesis that has been tested and proven to be a reasonable approximation of the truth.

T or F: The bedrock under the Pennocks Bridge Campus is approximately 500 million years old.

True

Risk analysis involves what two factors?

Probability & Consequences

What factors increase disaster risk?

Population growth, climate change & land use

T or F: There is no relationship between primary, secondary & tertiary disasters.

False

T or F: Natural hazards are predictable.

true

T or F: Natural hazards have no benefits.

False

To be classified as a mineral, a substance must exhibit these four characteristics.

It is naturally occurring, solid, have a cure chemical composition and a crystalline structure.

T or F: Covalent bonds are the weakest types of bonds.

False

T or F: Hardness is a good characteristic to be used in identifying minerals.

True

The 3 types of rocks are____.

Igneous, sedimentary & metamorphic

T or F: When the Earth first formed, all of the rocks were igneous.

True

T or F: When molten rock is below the surface it is known as lava, when above the surface it is magma.

False

T or F: Mafic rocks are generally darker in color than felsic rocks.

True

T or F: The vast majority of fossils are found in metamorphic rocks.

False

Tensional stress causes land to ____

Pull apart and stretch and thin.

You are visiting an area with a volcano that is starting to make noises like it might erupt. You are asked whether it is dangerous or not. You observe that the volcano is tall (over 500 feet tall) but has very gentle slopes and that all of the rocks in the area are dark colored. The best advice to give is:

to be careful but not worry too much as this is a relatively safe volcano.

T or F: Mafic rocks are lighter in color and lower in iron content than felsic rocks.

False

T or F: Hot spots have active volcanoes above them on the Earth's surface and moving plates carry the volcanoes away from their hot-spot source.

True

__________ are steep-sided, tall, symmetrical volcanic peaks built of alternating layers of pyroclastic debris capped by high-viscosity lava flows that solidify to form protective caps. 

Stratovolcanoes

While on vacation with friends, you encounter the volcano seen below. Using the knowledge gained in your ESS 100 course you immediately point out to your friends that since it is only 300 feet tall, is composed of loose fragments of dark rock and has a lava flow that leaked out of the bottom that it is therefore a _____.

Cinder cone

You are 100 meters away from the volcano pictured above when it starts to emit ash and gasses and you start to feel earthquakes. The best advise that you can give your friends is to ______.

Retire to a safe distance of 1-2 miles from the volcano and watch the show.

T or F: Karst landscape tends to form in areas underlain by igneous bedrock.

False

T or F: Mechanical weathering breaks up rocks into smaller pieces that then speed up the process of chemical weathering.

True

T or F: Frost wedging is a major form of mechanical weathering.

true

T or F: Caves are formed by cooling magma contracting underground and forming void spaces.

False

T or F: There are more living organisms in a tablespoon of soil that there are humans on the planet.

true

Soil is composed of:

sand, silt, and clay

The five soil forming factors are:

parent material, time, climate, topography and biology

T or F: Soil is the source of most of our food and fiber.

True

T or F: Most of the worms in North America are not native.

True

T or F: The Earth has roughly the same amount of water that it did 3.5 billion years ago.

true

The three types of loads that streams can carry are:

The three types of loads that streams can carry are:

T or F: Very few streams take the dendritic shape.

False

T or F: Most streams in this region are gaining streams, which gain flow from the groundwater.

True

T of F: A watershed is all of the water that flows away from a stream.

False

T or F: Groundwater is found in the pore spaces in soil or bedrock.

True

T or F: Precipitation is generally higher in the western USA than in the east.

False

T or F: Precipitation is generally higher in the western USA than in the east.

True

Of the water found on Earth, approximately __% of it is salty.

97

Of the water found on Earth, approximately __% of it is fresh water.

2

Of the available fresh water found on Earth, the majority of it is found 

in groundwater

A aquifer is a

geological unit that yields economically significant amounts of water

An aquitard is a

geological unit that does not yield economically significant amounts of water

T or F: Over-withdrawal of water, especially in karst regions, can lead to ground subsidence.

true

T or F: The Ogallala in the mid-western USA is largely filled with water that comes from rains that occurred over 15,000 years ago.

true

A glacier is

a thick mass of ice that originates on land from the accumulation, compaction, and recrystallization of snow

T or F: The last 2.5 million years has seen the Earth going through periods of increased glaciation with warmer periods in between.

True

A moraine, an esker, a drumlin and/or a kettle lake are evidence that a ____________used to be there.

glacier

T or F: Glaciers existed only recently, within the last 25,000 years.

False

Based upon ice core data, when atmospheric carbon dioxide levels rise, then ______.

temp increases

A moraine is a ________.

pile of eroded material piled up by a glacier.

A glacial erratic is a _______

rock out of place that is left by a glacier.

T or F: Most of the Earth's glaciers are shrinking in size

True

T or F: Mars has glaciers.

True

T or F: Generally speaking, glacial processes result in richer soils in the long run.

True

A wave breaks when it reaches water that is the depth of ________.

1/2 of the wavelength

A current that parallels the coastline transporting water and sand is called a ______ current.

longshore

Emergent coasts occur where _______.

the land is rising relative to sea level

Submergent coasts occur where __________.

  land is sinking relative to sea level

Barrier islands _________.

move inland with sea level rise

T or F: Waves can reflect or refract.

True

Constructive interference in waves makes the waves _____.

larger

T or F: Internal waves can be much larger than surface waves.

true

T or F: Tsunami are often a series of waves, not one single wave.

true

A ship captain tells you that his ship nearly capsized while in the middle of the Pacific ocean when struck by a tsunami. You think he is making this story up because ______.

tsunami are not really recognizable in deep water but only become an issue in shallow water

**Eckman Transport refers to _________________.**

the Coriolis effect causing water to move at right angles to wind

T or F: **Thermohaline circulation, such as seen in the Gulf Stream or the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation has little or no effect on climate.**

False

**T or F: The Coriolis Effect causes a turn to the right in the northern hemisphere.** 

True

The highest high tides, occurring when the sun and the moon line up is known as ________.

spring tide

T or F: One side of the moon is in perpetual darkness.

False

A Sverdrup is a unit of water flow roughly equivalent to __________.

the sum total of all of the rivers of the world discharging water into the ocean

The great extinction of dinosaurs 65 million years ago was probably caused by

A large bolide impact

T or F: Birds are technically dinosaurs.

True

T or F: Dinosaurs only existed only for a short time and were not considered very successful evolutionarily.

False

T or F: Tyrannosaurus rex is closer in time to humans than it is to Stegosaurus.

True

The boundaries of the different geologic time periods such as the Triassic turning into the Jurassic then into the Cretaceous are based upon:

Changes in dominant life forms. For example the Ordivician period was dominated by shell fish while the Silurian period that followed saw the first introduction of land plants

What is the largest economic use of fossils?

Dating of geologic strata to allow us to find mineral resources such as oil and gas

T or F: The extinction of the dinosaurs was the only massive extinction in the Earth’s history.

False

Over the course of the Earth's history the composition of the atmosphere has ______

changed significantly in response to various factors