Download GEOS 110 Fall 2011 Test 2 Study Guide Test cover`s Chapters: 5

GEOS 110 Fall 2011 Test 2 Study Guide
Test cover’s Chapters: 5 Ocean Circulation, 6 Cryosphere & 7 Solid Earth and all associated power point
notes on website
You are allowed a 1 page 8.5X11” double sided cheat sheet for diagrams, terms, definitions and notes of
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Chapter 5: Surface Ocean Circulation
Study Questions:
1. Why are there oceans?
2. What drives surface water circulation?
3. What is Ekman transport?
4. What is the pressure gradient force?
5. What is geostrophic flow?
6. Why does the water flow around the periphery of the ocean basin basins rather than spiraling into the center?
7. Know the basic surface ocean circulation patterns- the 5 gyres and the Antarctic Circumpolar Current.
8. What currents occur in the equatorial region?
9. What are the differences between eastern and western boundary currents, and why do those differences exist?
10. Where are you likely to find divergences and convergences in the ocean? What processes create these
conditions? Why are divergences and convergences important?
Deep Water Circulation
11. What drives deep water circulation?
12, Where do deep waters get their characteristic temperatures and salinities?
13. What determines the density of water?
14. What are the mixed layer and the thermocline?
15. How does the depth of the mixed layer and the shape of the thermocline vary with location (ideally at least)?
16. What are water masses?
17. What are the major deep water masses in the oceans?
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18. Where does the deep water form today that fills the deep Atlantic, Pacific and Indian basins and why?
19 Where does intermediate water form today, and why?
20. What path does deep water take as it travels through the ocean (the global conveyor)?
21. What happens to the water and its chemistry as it travels along that path? How do we get a sense of how
“old” the water is (how long it’s been away from the surface)?
22. What role does deep water circulation play in controlling climate?
23. What are AABW and NADW, when and how do they form, and how do they flow?
24. What is the role in ocean circulation of having a nearly land locked Arctic Ocean and a permanent ice cap in
Antarctica?
ENSO
25. What does “ENSO” stand for?
26. What is the southern oscillation?
27. What are some of the more widespread climate effects caused by this different ocean circulation pattern?
28. What is La Niña?
29. How does atmospheric circulation affect ENSO and what is the positive feedback loop here?
30. What are the differences in normal and ENSO conditions in terms of: low and high pressure systems, trade
wind strengths, counter current strength, upwelling, sea surface temperature distribution across the equatorial
Pacific (and SST anomalies), sea surface height across the equatorial Pacific, rain distribution, and the depth of
the thermocline?
31. What is the typical pattern of evolution of an ENSO event?
32. How frequently do ENSO events occur?
33. Teleconnections refer to weather patterns that are effected by ENSO outside of the immediate region of the
equatorial Pacific. What are some of these weather patterns?
34. Why is the sea salty and what did John Joly do to estimate the age of the earth from the salt in the seas?
35. What are the Thermocline, Halocline and Pycnocline and are they always the same depth, why or why not?
36. How do the layered structures differ between the Atlantic and Pacific and what role does the Mediterranean Sea
play?
37. What does 14C tell us about water masses and ocean circulation?
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38. Why is the flow of bottom water very much more restricted than that of surface ocean waters and how does this
affect ocean circulation?
39. Where are the 3 biggest “permanent” upwelling zones in the thermohaline conveyer system, and what effect does
this have on the marine biosphere?
Vocabulary:
Absolute vorticity
AABW
Antarctic circumpolar current
Atomic Number
Benguela current
Body forces (inertias, vorticity)
Bottom Water
Boundary currents (western)
Convergence (in oceans)
Divergence (in oceans)
Downwelling
Ekman Spiral
Ekman Transport
El Niño
ENSO
Equatorial Counter current
Evaporite deposit
Geostrophic current
Geostrophic flow
Gulf Stream
Gyre
Half-life (of 14C?)
Halocline
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Humbolt current
Isotope
Isotope ratios (12/14C etc)
Kuroshio current
La Niña
Labrador current
Mass Number
Mixed Layer
NADW
North Atlantic Drift
North Equatorial Current
Planetary vorticity
Poleward heat transport
Pycnocline
Radioactive decay
Radiocarbon dating
Radiometric age dating
Relative vorticity
Relative vorticity
Salinity (ppt)
Salt content of ocean water
Salt minerals
SO
SOI
South Equatorial Current
Stable Isotope (12C versus 13C)
Surface currents
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Thermocline
Thermohaline circulation/conveyer
Unstable/radioactive isotope
Upwelling
Vorticity (positive & negative)
West Wind Drift
Chapter 6: Cryosphere
Study Questions:
40. Where is the cryosphere, what different frozen forms does it take and where are the thickest ice caps?
41. How does snow/ice/ice shelf cover affect: 1) overlying air temperatures, 2) underlying land temperatures, 3)
underlying sea temperatures?
42. What is permafrost and what kind of hazards does it represent for building and for the global environment?
43. What is thermokarst?
44. How do snow/ice crystals form in the air?
45. How and where can ice form in the seas?
46. How do glaciers build on land and what is glacial equilibrium?
47. How do glaciers move on land versus at sea and why is there a fundamental difference?
48. What is gas hydrate, where does it occur and why, and in what way does it represent both a potential fuel
resource and an environmental threat?
49. How does sea ice form and how is this related to the thermohaline circulation in the ocean basins?
50. What are the 2 ways a polynia can form and why do they tend to form in the same locations year in, year out
and persist through winter even when the air temperature is < -20°C?
51. What is the role of multi-year sea ice and ice shelves in terms of maintaining climate.
52. How do the location of the sea coast and the depth of the water over the continental shelf vary in polar
regimes?
53. What is happening to the position of the arctic seacoasts now and is this due to glacial rebound or to global
warming and how can you tell?
54. What is special about the amount of ice cover in the Arctic in the summers of 2007 and 2011 and how long
has it been since the “Great White North” was like this?
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Vocabulary:
Ablation zone
Accumulation Zone
Active Layer
Baffin Bay
Basal Shear Stress
Beaufort sea
Brinesicles
Continental Ice Sheet
Critical Point
Firn
Freezing nuclei
Ice-(Snow)-Albedo feedback
Ice cap
Ice dome
Ice shelf
Mountain (valley) glaciers
Normal stress
Permafrost
Phase diagram
Pingo
Polynyii/Polynia
Sea Ice
Seasonal ice/snow
Shear stress
Stress
Supercooled water
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Talik
Thermal inertia
Thermokarst
Triple point
Chapter 7: Structure, Circulation & Cycles in the Solid Earth
Study Questions:
55. In what way is the earth dynamic rather than static for its internal heat, magnetic field, solid mantle,
continent configuration and ocean basin shape?
56. Where does melting take place in the Earth?
57. What is the state of the Mantle?
58. Where is new lithosphere made?
59. Where is ocean lithosphere recycled?
58. Why and how does the mantle convect?
59. Why are the continents mostly older than the ocean basins?
60. Where do mountain belts form?
61. Where do the largest earthquakes occur and why?
62. What is the maximum depth for and size of earthquakes?
63. Where is more magma made and where are there more volcanoes: mid ocean ridges or arcs and why?
64. Where are the thickest accumulations of sediments?
65. How can one rock type with its collection of minerals turn into another?
66. Where does the rock cycle work fastest?
67. What is a Wilson cycle and how long does it last.
68. What are 2 kinds of physical evidence that the outer core is liquid?
69. Why does the outer core convect?
70. What is the Moho?
71. What is the seismic and geochemical evidence for recycling of ocean crust and sediments back into the
mantle?
72. How did Wegner come to realize that there had been a single Supercontinent of Pangea and when was this?
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73. Where was the Loma Prieta Quake, how big was it and how much damage did it cause?
74. What is the difference between lava and magma?
75. What do magnetic reversals have to tell us about the age of the seafloor or the rates of plate motion?
76. Has the earth’s field been more normal or reversed for the last 2.5 Ma? What about the last 75 Ma?
77. What kinds of geological processes happen at divergent versus convergent boundaries?
78. What do black smokers have to tell us about massive sulfide ore deposits or about biological evolution?
79. What is the basis of the life web at the bottom of the sea?
80. What do you suspect that East Africa, the Red Sea and Saudi Arabia migh look like in 100 Ma?
81. What is the evidence for 1 versus 2 layer convection in the mantle?
82. How much different was Earth’s internal heat when it first formed about 4.5 Ga and how do we know this?
83. What kinds of physical forces contribute to plate motion and which ones are likely the biggest?
84. How and why does erosion take place and what are the long term consequences of this?
85. Why doesn’t partial melting usually happen in the crust?
Vocabulary:
Asthenosphere
Basalt
Body Waves
Calcium Carbonate
Chemosynthesis
Continent
Continental Crust
Continental Drift
Carbonaceous chondrites
Craton
Earthquake
Epicentre
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Erosion
Farallon plate
Felsic
Geomagnetic dynamo
Gabbro
Granite
Igneous rock
Kimberlite
Lava
Limestone
Lithification
Lithosphere
Low velocity zone
Mafic
Magma
Magnetic field
Magnetic polarity (main field or rocks)
Metamorphic rocks
Meteorite
Mid Ocean Ridge
Mineral
Moho
Pangea
Plate Tectonics
P wave (primary compressional body wave)
Rock cycle
Seafloor spreading
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Sedimentary Rock
Sediments
Seismic Wave (Body or Surface waves)
Seismograph
Silicates
Slab
Subduction
Surface wave (Love and Rayleigh, dispersive, largest amplitude, slowest, most damaging)
S wave (secondary shear body wave)
Transform fault
Wilson cycle
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