GEOS 100 FINAL EXAM REVIEW

Instructor: Delwar Ahmed

 

This would be reviewed on Friday (12/05/2003) during class. The FINAL EXAM is 0n 10th December, 2003 in WOOD HALL 1001 from 10:15 am – 12:15pm.

There would be about 100-110 questions to answer. The exam will cover all the following chapters. Read the text and handouts posted on the web and go through your class notes before the exam.

 

Chapter 1

Read the handout

Introduction to Physical Geology/Scientific Methods

  1. How is a scientific hypothesis different from a scientific theory?
  2. What are the four components of scientific methods/investigation?
  3. How old is the planet Earth? What method was used to calculate that?

 

Chapter 2

Matter and Minerals

  1. What is called a mineral? Are quartz, diamond, graphite, oil minerals? Which one is not and why?
  2. What are the physical properties used to identify minerals?
  3. Briefly distinguish between ionic and covalent bonding.
  4. What simple test can be used to identify calcite from other minerals?
  5. What is the most abundant group of minerals on Earth?
  6. What is Moh’s scale? Why and how it is used?
  7. Describe the difference between minerals and rocks.

 

Chapter 3

Igneous Rocks

  1. How do igneous rocks form? Why it is called the primary rock?
  2. How the igneous rocks are classified?
  3. What is the difference between felsic and mafic igneous rocks?
  4. What factors influence the texture of igneous rocks?
  5. What are the different texture types? What is the difference between phaneritic, aphanitic, and porphyritic textures?
  6. In which way granite and rhyolite are different?
  7. What is volcanic glass? Why it is named so?

 

Chapter 5

Weathering and Soil

  1. What is meant by weathering? Distinguish between the various types of weathering processes.
  2. What is the difference soil and regolith?
  3. What are the components of soil?
  4. What mineral after weathering turns into clay? What type of weathering is involved in that minerals transformation into clay?
  5. What is a soil profile? What is the sequence of soil profile development from top down?
  6. How does do rock type influences the rate of weathering?
  7. Know the types of physical and chemical weathering.
  8. Know the difference between dissolution and hydrolysis.
  9. What is the difference between pedalfer and pedocal? Which one represents which type of climate?

 

Chapter 6

Sedimentary Rocks

  1. How do sedimentary rocks form?
  2. What are the different types of sedimentary rocks?
  3. What is the primary basis for distinguishing different detrital sedimentary rocks?
  4. What are evaporites? Name a rock that is an evaporite.
  5. Distinguish between conglomerate and breccia, shale and sandstone?
  6. What is the most common mineral found in chemical and biochemical sedimentary rock?
  7. What is the primary basis for distinction among different chemical sedimentary rocks?

 

Chapter 7

Metamorphic Rocks

  1. What is metamorphism? What are the agents of metamorphism?
  2. What do you understand by the term degree of metamorphism? What is the difference between slate and schist, schist and gneiss?
  3. What is the difference between limestone and marble, quartz sandstone and quartzite?
  4. What is the term used for layering in metamorphic rocks? What is its relationship with the direction of stress?
  5. What are the different types of metamorphism? Distinguish between contact, regional metamorphism.
  6. What is a metamorphic aureole? Where would you expect to find it?
  7. What is impact metamorphism?

 

Chapter 8

Geologic Time and Evolution

  1. Distinguish between relative and absolute dating.
  2. What is the basis of compiling the geologic time scale?
  3. What is Law of Superposition? How are the cross-cutting relationships used in relative dating of geologic events?
  4. Distinguish among angular unconformity, disconformity, and nonconformity.
  5. What is the basis of absolute dating? What is half-life and how it is used in absolute dating?
  6. Why are sedimentary rocks not a good indicator of absolute dates?

 

Chapter 9

Mass Wasting

  1. What is the controlling force of mass wasting? How does water affect mass wasting process?
  2. Distinguish among fall, slide, and flow.
  3. Both slump and rockslide move by sliding. In what ways do these processes differ?
  4. What is a scarp and how does a scarp form?

 

Chapter 10

Running Water

  1. What is stream gradient? How does it influence the flow of a stream?
  2. In what ways a stream transports sediments?
  3. What is the difference between alluvial fans and deltas?

 

Chapter 11

Groundwater

  1. Distinguish between the zones of aeration and saturation. What is the name of the thin zone between these two?
  2. What is denoted by water table?
  3. Distinguish between gaining and loosing stream.
  4. What is the difference between porosity and permeability?
  5. What do you understand by aquifer, aquitard?
  6. Clay layers may have high porosity and can store a large quantity of water, but sufficient amount of water can’t be extracted. What is the cause of this?
  7. What is artesian condition? What is an artesian well?
  8. What is an unconfined aquifer? Do you expect to get an artesian well in an unconfined aquifer? If yes, why and if not why?
  9. What is the source of heat for most of hot springs and geysers?

 

Chapter 12

Glaciers and Glaciation

  1. Distinguish between continental and alpine glaciers. Where on earth would you find these types of glaciers.
  2. Why do crevasses form in the upper portion of a glacier but not below 50 meters?
  3. Under what circumstances will the front of a glacier advance? Retreat? Remain stationary?
  4. List the erosional features you might expect to see in an area where valley glacier exist or have recently existed.
  5. What are moraines? Know the four basic moraine types. What do all moraines have in common?
  6. What is signified by medial moraines, terminal moraines, and recessional moraines?
  7. About how many years ago the last peak glaciation affected the earth?
  8. Why there is more evidence of past glaciation in the northern hemisphere than the southern hemisphere?

 

Chapter 13

Deserts and Winds

  1. Why is rock weathering reduced in deserts?
  2. What is the most important erosional agent in deserts?
  3. What do you understand by rain shadow desert? Name one example.
  4. What is an insleberg? What does it denote in terms of maturity of the desertic landscape?
  5. What are ventifacts? How do this form? How high the wind can carry sand particles?
  6. What are sand dunes? Know the types of dunes shown in the text. Are these depositional or erosional features?

 

Chapter 14

Shorelines

  1. Describe three factors that determine the height, length, and period of a wave.
  2. Describe two ways in which wave causes erosion.
  3. Under what conditions, the deep water wave changes to shallow water waves?
  4. Know the features: wave-cut cliff, wave-cut platform, sea stack, spit, baymouth bar, tombolo.
  5. Why groin is built? How would you distinguish groin from breakwaters, another manmade feature?
  6. What observable features would lead you to classify a coastal area as emergent?

 

Chapter 15

Crustal Deformation

  1. What is rock deformation?
  2. What are the types of stresses that cause deformation of earth’s crust?
  3. What are the factors that control the deformation of rocks?
  4. What is the difference between plastic and elastic deformation?
  5. What two terms are used to describe the orientation or trend of a geologic structure?
  6. What are anticline, syncline, and monocline?
  7. What are the three broad classes of faults? What is implied by the terms dip-slip and strike-slip fault?
  8. How would you distinguish normal fault from a reverse fault?
  9. What is the distinction between joint and fault?
  10. What type of fault is San Andreas Fault? Why is it so?

 

Chapter 16

Earthquakes

  1. How focus, epicenter and fault are related to earthquake?
  2. Earthquakes occur only in the rigid lithosphere, not in the plastic asthenosphere. Why?
  3. P waves move through solids, liquids, and gases, whereas S waves move only through solids. Explain.
  4. Which type of seismic wave causes the greatest damage to buildings and other structures?
  5. List the three factors that affect the amount of destruction caused by seismic vibrations.
  6. What factor contributed most to the extensive damage that occurred in the central portion of Mexico City during the 1985 earthquake and in California during 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake?

 

Chapter 17

Earth’s Interior

  1. List the major differences between P and S waves.
  2. What causes P wave shadow zone?
  3. How does the boundary between the crust and mantle (Moho) differ from the boundaries that occur at depths of about 400 and 700 kilometers?
  4. In what important way the lithosphere is different from asthenosphere?
  5. Why S waves can travel through asthenosphere yet the material is able to flow like liquid?
  6. Why the meteorites are considered important clues to the composition of Earth’s interior?
  7. What chemical element is thought to be a major component of the inner and outer core?

 

Chapter 19

Plate Tectonics

  1. What was Pangaea?
  2. What led scientists suspect that the continents were once joined?
  3. List the evidence that wegener and his supporters gather to support the continental drift theory?
  4. What was the prevailing view early in this century, of how land animals migrated across vast expanses of ocean?
  5. How does the evidence of past glaciation in the Southern Hemisphere support the continental drift hypothesis?
  6. Briefly explain the sea floor spreading. How does this theory support the continental drift theory of Wegener?
  7. Why is the oceanic plate subducted while the continental plate is not?
  8. Where can you expect subduction zone to form?
  9. Differentiate between transform faults and the two other plate boundaries.

 

Read the handout

Earth System and global Climate Change

  1. Name the components of the earth system.
  2. How global warming is related to the change in the components of earth system?
  3. In which way on global scale, plants and animal kingdom are related.
  4. List the greenhouse gases that are present in the atmosphere.

 

Chapter 21

Energy and Resources

  1. Contrast renewable and nonrenewable resources. Know one example from each group.
  2. Know the impacts on the atmospheric environment of burning fossil fuels.
  3. What is the primary fuel for nuclear fission reactors?