Download GS 106 Final Exam Study Guide Origins of Earth/first week What are

GS 106 Final Exam Study Guide
Origins of Earth/first week
What are the steps that led to Earth's formation?
How did the atmosphere and oceans form?
How did Earth become layered
What are differences between the inner and outer planets?
How is science done? How is science different than other disciplines?
What is a hypothesis?
Rocks and minerals
What makes up an atom? Can you identify number of protons, neutrons, electrons using the
periodic table?
What are minerals (a geologic definition)?
How can minerals be identified?
What determines a mineral's physical properties? (i.e. why is quartz hard, why does mica
have cleavage)
What is the rock cycle? Be sure to review all of its steps.
Know how igneous, sedimentary, and metamorphic rocks form.
Know how to determine the cooling history by looking at an igneous rock.
Know how to distinguish between clastic and chemical sedimentary rocks.
Know how to distinguish between foliated and non-foliated metamorphic rocks.
Geologic Time
Be able to apply principles of relative dating to determine the age sequence from a cross
section.
Know what an unconformity is. Recognize an angular unconformity and how it forms.
How old is Earth? How do we know? When did life first appear? When did dinosaurs first
appear? When did humans first appear?
What is radioactive decay? What are isotopes (ie parent-daughter). Define half life.
What is carbon 14 dating used for? What is a limitation of it?
Be able to determine the age of a rock/mineral, etc given the ratio of parent:daughter and
half life.
Plate tectonics and earthquakes
Be able to sketch the crust/mantle/core with approximate thicknesses.
Compare and contrast the lithosphere and asthenosphere.
Distinguish between the 3 plate boundaries. Know associated geographic/topographical
features and location and depth of earthquakes. Know associated stress types.
Distinguish between epicenter and hypocenter. Review how earthquakes are located (see
the virtual seismologist activity).
Compare the amount of shaking of different magnitude earthquakes using the Richter Scale.
Know about the three main types of seismic waves and how they are used in epicenter
location.
Why was the Haiti earthquake so much more severe than the Chile earthquake this year?
Where do the largest magnitude earthquakes occur? Where do the deepest earthquakes
occur?
How do tsunamis occur?
Compare and contrast shield, strato volcanoes and cinder cones.
Oceans
Know the parts of a wave: trough, crest, wavelength, wave base, amplitude.
Why do waves break at the beach.
Compare and contrast active and passive margins in terms of seafloor features.
What causes most ocean waves to form?
What causes surface currents?
What causes deep-ocean currents?
How does salinity vary?
How do ocean currents affect climate?
Atmosphere
Where is the ozone layer? What does the ozone layer do?
How does air pressure change with increasing latitude?
What does air do (both vertically and with winds) at low pressure and high pressure zones?
How does the ocean regulate temperature?
What type of weather is associated with high and low pressure?
How does the Coriolis Effect deflection winds and ocean currents?
Where are the trade winds? What are the horse latitudes? Why are the polar regions cool
yet they receive very little precipitation?
What causes the seasons?
Be able to make a sketch of the greenhouse effect. Why do the Sun and Earth emit different
wavelengths of radiation? What are important greenhouse gases?
What would Earth be like without the Greenhouse Effect?
Weather
How do clouds form? Know what these mean: adiabatic cooling, condensation nuclei,
orographic uplift, rain shadow effect.
What is the relationship between saturation, relative humidity and dew point. Be able to
calculate relative humidity and determine dew point (see powerpoint and Quiz 6).
How do hurricanes form? Why is the storm surge dangerous and when does it occur?
Climate change
How do weather and climate differ?
What scientific evidence is there that humans are causing (at least in part) climate change?
What is the carbon cycle? What are sinks of carbon? What are sources of carbon? Is it in
balance? [see online link to sciencecourseware for a review of the carbon cycle)
What is the greenhouse effect and how does it affect Earth's climate?
How could melting of the Greenland ice sheet affect deep-ocean circulation and the climate
of Northern Europe and Eastern North America?