Planet Earth Professor Browning - Final Exam - 21% of Grade

Final Exam Content - After Midterm #3

Approximately what percentage of Earth’s surface is covered with ocean?

70%

What is the HMS Challenger expedition known for?

Being the first oceanogrpahic cruise

What is the continental shelf?

The extension of the adjacent continent covered by ocean

What is an epicontinental sea?

A sea that covers the central area of a continent

In the graded shelf model for continental shelf sediments, where are the coarse sandy sediments?

At the beach

How are submarine canyons formed:

Turbidity currents erode them

What characterizes the deposit produced by a turbidity current:

a graded bed

What is the average depth of the abyssal plain:

4 kilometers below sea level

What are deep sea sediments derived from organisms are called?

biogenic

Why are carbonate skeletons absent from the deepest parts of the ocean?

The skeletons dissolve quickly when they sink below the CCD

Which of the following makes a skeleton from calcite?

Fomeraminerphs and coclapohirirs

Which of these are freshwater reservoirs:

Glaciers and groundwaterlakes

The boundary between the saturated zone and the unsaturated zone is called the__ .

water table

The boundary between the saturated zone and the unsaturated zone is called the__ .

porostiy

Why do clays have low permeability:

The connections between pores are too small to allow water to pass between the pores

Karst regions are only found where there is:

Carbonate bedrock

D’Arcy’s Law shows that groundwater flow depends upon which two things:

Steeper gradients and greater permeability

An artesian well:

is a well in which the water level in the well rises above the aquifer

Excessive pumping in relation to recharge can cause___

all of these - water table decline, cone of depression

What properties of a geologic material make the best aquifer?

High porosity, high permeability

What must occur in order for the groundwater table to remain constant?

The rate of recharge must be equal to the discharge rate

How do glaciers affect the hydrologic cycle:

Melting glaciers add water to the oceans raising global sea-level

What is an ice sheet:

A mass of ice completely covering all land surface within its margin

Dense, old snow with the texture of coarse sand, that has survived a year of melting is:

Firn

Cold, dry glaciers move ___

Mostly by plastic flow

When accumulation is greater than ablation the glacier will:

Advance

Valleys eroded by glaciers tend to be:

U-shaped

What is the name for an amphitheater-like hollow that forms at the head of a glacier?

Cirque

A lake in a cirque is called:

A tarn

The terminal moraine for the last glaciation is found:

In northern New Jersey (north of Piscataway)

The steepest angle that a slope can maintain without collapsing is called_

Angle of repose

How does a flow differ from a slide?

A flow is a mixture that moves like a viscous liquid, a slide moves as a single intact block

The imperceptibly slow downhill movement of soil and sediment is called_

Creep

Because of the curvature of the Earth, light reaching the poles is more ___ and therefore the energy received at the surface is _ than

Direct; less intense

In which direction are winds deflected by the Coriolis effect?

Toward the right in the northern hemisphere and the left in the southern hemisphere

Why are many deserts located at 30˚ north and south of the equator?

Cool descending air at those latitudes warms and absorbs moisture

Desert pavement forms because___

Wind removes the fine-grained materials between pebbles

What is an alluvial fan?

An expanse of material deposited where a channel leaves the mountains