Principles of Earth Science - Final Exam Study Questions!

What are the kinds of plate boundaries between tectonic plates?

convergent, divergent, and transform

What are the names of the four supercontinents that existed pre-Flood and early post-Flood?

pangaea, rodinia, laurentia, and gondwana

What are the kinds of plate boundaries between tectonic plates?

convergent, divergent, and transform

What are the names of the four supercontinents that existed pre-Flood and early post-Flood?

pangaea, rodinia, laurentia, and gondwana

What occurs during polar wander?

the magnetic north and south poles...

What are the types of volcanoes?

caldera, cinder cone, shield, ...

What are the 4 different types of faults?

normal (hanging moves downward), thrust (hanging moves upward), strike-slip (blocks move against each other), and oblique (vertical and horizontal motion)

What is the law of original horizontality?

a rule of relative dating which asserts that when sediments or extrusive igneous rocks are deposited, they are spread out in broad, flat sheets

What are the different seismic waves emitted from an earthquake?

p waves (primary), s waves (secondary), and surface waves

What are the different measuring tools for seismic waves?

seismograph, seismogram, siesmometer

What is actualism?

a philosophical approach to geology which asserts that the geological processes that operated in the past were much the same as those operating today, though the scope and magnitude of events may be very different

What are the different kinds of radioactive decay?

alpha decay (parent emits 2 protons and 2 neutrons), beta decay (parent emits electron), and gamma decay (parent emits energy but doesn't change elements)

What are the types of unconfomities?

disconformities (sedimentary on eroded sedimentary), nonconformities (sedimentary on igneous or metamorphic) , paraconformities (sedimentary on sedimentary, hard to distinguish) , and angular unconformities (sedimentary and sedimentary at opposing angles)

What is catastrophism?

an approach to geology developed in the 1700s and 1800s which asserted that earth was ancient, that earth's geology was formed by destructive global upheavals, and that God supernaturally created organisms and ecosystems sequentially over eons of time

What is the process of electron capture?

a type of radioactive decay in which the parent isotope is struck by an electron and the electron fuses with a proton in its nucleus to form a proton

What is the law of lateral continuity?

a rule of relative dating which asserts that when sediments or extrusive igneous rocks are deposited, they remain the same composition in all directions until they either (a) contact an edge or wall to the depositional environment, or (b) thin out as energy levels decrease far from the source region

What's the difference between nuclear fusion and nuclear fission?

fusion involves two light nuclei are combined to release energy, and fission involves one heavy, unstable nucleus into two lighter nuclei to release energy

What is the principle of cross-cutting relations?

a rule of relative dating which asserts that geological structures or features must be younger than the geological units that they effect

What is the principle of faunal succession?

a rule of relative dating that asserts that fossil organisms follow one another in a definite and recognizable order within sedimentary rocks

What is the rule of inclusions?

a rule of relative dating which asserts that when a rock includes pieces of another rock inside it, the included pieces must be older than the rock containing them

What is uniformitarianism?

a philosophical approach to geology which argues that only observed and measured processes and rates should be used to infer past geological events, summed up by "the present is the key to the past"

What is Walther's law?

a rule of relative dating which asserts that in a vertical sequence of sedimentary rocks, the types of rocks found above and below each other are the same as those found adjacent to sedimentary environments

What is Snowball Earth?

a hypothesized period of global to near-global ice ages during the middle and later proterozoic eon

What is the significance of the Great Unconformity?

it likely marks the first advance of waters over the continents during Noah's Flood

What are the four geological "eras" apparent in the geological column?

precambrian, paleozoic, mesozoic, cenozoic

What are the 5 soil horizons?

o, a, b, c, e

What are some of the types of mechanical (physical) weathering?

frost wedging, frost heaving, exfoliation, root wedging, abrasion, hydraulic action, cavitation, wind, fire, groundwater sapping

What are some kinds of natural geological disasters?

earthquakes, floods, tsunamis, landslides (and other mass movements), subsidence

What are the special kinds of weathering and how do they occur?

differential weathering - two different rock layers weather at two different rates

spheroidal weathering - ...

What's the difference between weathering and erosion?

weathering is the breakdown of an object, erosion is the breakdown and relocation of sediment

What are some different kinds of streams?

meandering, braided, misfit, disappearing

What's the difference between a stalagmite and a stalactite?

stalagmites grow from the floor of a cave, stalactites grow from the ceiling

What's the difference between an ice sheet and an ice cap?

an ice sheet covers over 50,000 square km, an ice cap covers less than 50,000 square km

What are the types of dunes?

barchan, transverse, barchanoid, longitudinal, parabolic, star

What are the most common methods of mining?

strip mining and mountaintop removal

What's the difference between a resource, reserve, and proved reserve?

a resource is any material that can be used by people, a reserve is a resource that has a good likelihood of existing, and a proved reserve is one that's known to exist and can be recovered economically

What is the Coriolis Effect?

an apparent force due to the rotation of the earth, causing moving objects in the northern hemisphere to veer right relative to the surface and moving objects in the southern hemisphere to veer left relative to the surface

What are the various tidal patterns found all over the world?

diurnal (one high and low tide per day), semidiurnal(two high and low tides per day), and mixed (two unequal high and low tides per day)

What is thermohaline circulation?

the large-scale flow of surface and deep-ocean waters driven by differences in temperature and salinity

What are some geological features that are formed near or in an ocean due to weathering/erosion?

sea arch, sea stack, sea wall, tied island, wave-cut platform, wave-cut cliff

What are the features of a wave?

trough, crest, base, wavelength, height

Why are there 2 tidal bulges on the Earth?

the moon (or sun) pulls the greatest on one side of the earth, causing the water on that side to bulge. the moon/sun also is pulling on the earth itself, so relative to the other side of the ocean, the earth is being pulled away from that water, causing it to bulge on the opposite side as well

What is the atmospheric effect?

warming of the planet due to the selective absorption of gases in the atmosphere

What is a feedback mechanism?

a sequence of interactions that results in either a reinforcement (positive feedback) or inhibition (negative feedback) of the original action

What are greenhouse gases?

gasses that primarily absorb radiation in the infrared range of the spectrum

What is the Koppen Climate Classification, and what are the 6 zones?

a classification system that divides the land surface of earth into climate zones based on the vegetation that grows there; zones are A, B, C, D, E, and H

What are the zones/layers of the atmosphere?

troposphere, stratosphere, mesosphere, thermosphere, exosphere

What is an adiabatic process?

a process where there is no heat transfer into or out of a system

What are the main cloud classifications?

cumulus, stratus, cirrus, and nimbus(+cumulus, stratus)

What is the environmental lapse rate?

the measured rate of temperature change in the atmosphere relative to altitude

What are some of the atmospheric phenomena?

iridescence, halo, sundog, rainbow

What is a parcel of air?

an imaginary mass of air that has uniform properties and does not exchange energy or mix with its surroundings

What are the stages of a thunderstorm?

cumulus (air rises and clouds form), mature (reaches tropopause and precipitation begins), and dissipation (strength and size of cloud declines)

What are the 3 types of circulatory cells in the atmosphere?

hadley, ferrel, and polar

What are the levels of hurricane advisories?

hurricane watch (it's possible) and hurricane warning (it's expected)

What are the levels of tornado advisories?

tornado watch (it's possible) and tornado warning (it's expected)

What are the types of weather forecasts?

persistence (assumes no weather change), steady-state (assumes there's a trend), climatology (uses 30-year averages), numerical forecasts (use physical principles to calculate future behavior), Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite [GOES] (satellites that transmit weather-related data and images)

What are the stages of a hurricane?

tropical depression (closed circulation around a pressure system), tropical storm (winds reaching 65 kmh, is named), and hurricane/cyclone/typhoon (winds exceed 119 kmh, has a well-developed structure)