Download Study questions for Exam #1 - University of Colorado Boulder

Study questions for Exam #1 – Thursday February 9 (Spring 2006)
Lecture #1 - Introduction
1. On the average, how many people die each year from natural catastrophes?
2. Which types of catastrophe kill the most people?
3. How many people are estimated to have died in the Banda Aceh earthquake and
tsunami last year?
4. Does the increasing cost of damage caused by natural catastrophes indicate that
that recently there have been more of them or bigger ones?
Lecture #2 – Uncertainties in our understanding of natural processes
1. What are 4 different sources of uncertainty in our interpretation of natural events
and our understanding of the potential for future natural catastrophes.
2. How old is the Earth? How old are the Sun and the Moon?
3. How are these ages determined?
4. What process produces heat inside the Earth and drives mantle convection and
plate tectonics?
5. Has this heat source been increasing or decreasing since the Earth formed?
6. When did the dinosaurs become extinct?
7. How many other species died off at approximately the same time?
8. When did early hominoids evolve?
9. How long is written recorded history?
10. Approximately how long ago were accurate determinations of the age of the earth
made and instrumental records of earthquakes and temperature changes recorded?
Lecture #3 – damage from earthquakes
1. What is liquefaction of soil?
2. Why do earthquakes cause avalanches and landslides and cause buildings to
collapse?
3. What structural element do buildings need in order not to collapse?
4. How do earthquakes cause fires?
5. Why are fires harder to put out after earthquakes than normally?
6. Earthquakes in what type of tectonic plate boundary produce tsunamis?
Lecture #4 – seismic waves, earthquake magnitudes and locations and earth’s
internal structure
1. What is the difference between a compressional and a shear wave? Which travels
faster in the earth? Which generates the larger more destructive motion?
2. How do one determine from a seismogram how far away an earthquake occurred?
3. Can one seismogram determine the location of an earthquake? How amny are
needed?
4. The amplitude of which wave is measured to determine the Richter scale
earthquake magnitude?
5. Why is the Richter scale unreliable for large quakes?
6. What physical factors need to be measured to determine the M magnitude of a
quake?
7. How can the size of a rupture zone of even deep earthquakes be determined?
8. What was the size of the rupture zone and displacement, and about how long did
the ground shake in the San Francisco 1906 earthquake and what was the M
magnitude of this quake?
9. What was the size of the rupture zone and displacement, and about how long did
the ground shake in the 1960 Chilean earthquake and what was the M magnitude
of this quake?
10. In what type of tectonic plate boundaries are the largest earthquakes generated?
Why?
11. Why do larger quakes cause ground shaking over a longer period of time?
12. How much bigger is a 7M quake than a 6M quake. How much bigger is an 8M
quake than a 7M quake. How much bigger is an 8M quake than a 6M quake?
13. What is the largest quake that can occur according to the M magnitude scale?
14. Which part of the earth is liquid? How is this determined?
15. In which part of the earth does plastic convection occur? What energy source
drives this convection?
16. How thick is the lithosphere? What percent of all earthquakes occur in the
lithosphere? Where do deep earthquakes occur?
17. What percent of all earthquakes occur at plate boundaries? What percent occur
inside the areas of plates.
Lecture #5 – plates, plate boundaries and plate motions
1.
2.
3.
4.
What are the three different types of plate boundaries?
What types of faults occur at each of these different boundaries?
At which type of boundary do the deepest and strongest quakes occur.
What type of plate boundary and occurs in California? What plates does this
boundary separate?
5. What type of plate boundary occurs along the Atlantic coast by New York city?
6. What type of plate boundary occurs below the western coast of South America
below the Andes? What type occurs in northern India below the Himalaya
mountains? What type occurs along the length of the Aleutian islands and
southern Alaska?
7. What type of plate boundary occurs in Iceland. On what plate is Iceland? What
types of faults occur in Iceland?
8. What types of faults occur in the Basin and Range area of the US? Is this a plate
boundary?
9. What types of faults generated the Southern Rocky Mountain Front range here in
Boulder? When were these faults active? Are they still active?
10. What are the rates of plate motions across Iceland? Across the San Andreas fault?
Across the Andes? Across the East Pacific Rise?
11. How long have plate motions at these plate boundaries been approximately the
same?
12. How old is the oldest oceanic crust on the Atlantic ocean?
13. When did the super-continent Pangea begin to break apart and the Atlantic ocean
begin to open?
14.
Lecture #6 – earthquake prediction
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
What four things need to be specified in a testable prediction of an earthquake?
What federal agency certifies earthquake prediction for their validity?
What is the dilatancy theory of the triggering of an earthquake?
What is the asperity model of the triggering of an earthquake?
What change in the rate of background seismicity was considered a precursor to a
large earthquake according to the dilatancy model of earthquakes?
6. What change in the rate of background seismicity was considered a precursor to a
large earthquake according to the asperity model of an earthquake?
7. Are there any known precursor events that can reliably be used to predict an
earthquake?
8. What factors are used to make long-term forecasts for earthquakes?
9. Why was an earthquake predicted for the Parksfield segment of the San Andreas
fault in 1988 +/- 5 years? Did this quake occur when predicted? When did it
occur?
10. What is the rate determined by paleo-seismic studies of the southern San Andreas
fault for recurrence of a large quake on the Mojave segment of the fault east of
Los Angeles? When did the last one occur? When will the next occur?
Lecture #7 – earthquakes and tectonics of the western US
1. What is the total relative plate motion that occurs between the Pacific and North
American plates?
2. What fault is the major plate boundary between these plates?
3. How much of the total plate motion actually takes place along the San Andreas
fault?
4. Where are two other regions in the western US where some of this motion occurs?
5. What type of tectonics and faulting occurs in the Basin and Range?
6. What type of tectonic and faulting occurs in the Californai coast ranges and below
the Los Angeles Basin?
7. Why are the blind thrust faults below LA more dangerous than the San Andreas
fault to this city?
8. What type of tectonic activity occurs in the northwest US? Is there any danger of
earthquakes here?
9. What type of tectonic activity occurs in the central and eastern US. Have
earthquakes ever occurred here?
10. What type of plate boundary occurs along the Atlantic coast between Florida and
New York?