Physical Science Test 4

Life Cycle of a Star

cloud of gas and dust, protostar (brown dwarf if die here), main sequence, red giant, medium mass stars (planetary nebula, white dwarf, black dwarf) or high mass stars (supernova --> black hole or neutron (pulsar) star)

P waves

compresses and expands the ground

Types of boundaries:

continent-continent, continent-ocean, ocean-ocean

Evidence for continental drift is found in

continental shape and structure, fossils, paleomagnetic evidence, seafloor spreading

Lithosphere

crust and part of upper mantle (completely solid)

Chemical layers of the Earth:

crust, mantle, core

What best describes the chemical composition of Earth's crust and core?

crust: granite and basalt, core:iron and nickel

Dark energy vs. Dark matter

dark energy: force dark matter: mass

What is the makeup of the Earth?

digging, meteorites, seismic waves, magnetic fields

Ocean-ocean divergent boundaries cause...

earthquakes, volcanoes, mid-ocean ridges

Continent-ocean convergent boundaries cause...

earthquakes, volcanoes, mountains, trenches

Continent-continent divergent boundaries cause...

earthquakes, volcanoes, rift valleys

Ocean-ocean convergent boundaries cause...

earthquakes, volcanoes, trenches, island arcs, tsunamis

4 effects of the hydrological cycle

erosion, transportation of sediment, deposition of sediment, moraines

Which do you NOT find IN the Milky Way?

globular clusters

Characteristics of Igneous Rocks:

glossy smooth surface, gas bubble holes, random arrangement of materials

Protostars give off infra-red light. The ultimate source of light energy emitted by a protostar is

gravitational potential energy

Which principles govern the life of a star?

gravity (mass attracts mass), electromagnetism (radiation), nuclear forces (fusion)

What do we call a gas which transmits higher energy visible photons but absorbs a large fraction of infrared photons?

greenhouse gas

According to the big bang model, how do the temperature, density and structures found very early in the universe compare to those now? The earliest stages have

higher temperatures, higher densities, fundamental particles (quarks and electrons)

Most stars spend the greater part of their active life as a

hydrogen/proton-fusing star

Faunal Succession

if you look at rock somewhere, it will look the same somewhere else in the world (trash heaps)

Physical weathering

Any process that breaks rock down into smaller pieces without changing the chemistry of the rock; typically wind and water.

Why is helium harder to fuse than hydrogen?

Because Helium contains 2 protons.

What would be the best method to determine the distance to Mars?

Bounce a radio wave off of it and time how long it takes to make the round trip.

If you wanted to measure the distance to a distant galaxy, which of the following distance measurement techniques could you use?

Brightness-distance relationships using type IA supernova

A sinkhole can form in limestone when water dissolves the limestone. Which of the following best describes this type of weathering?

chemical weathering

Surface Wave

circular, doing the wave on the Earth's surface

How does the plate tectonic model account for the movement of continents?

The continents rest on rigid plates. The plates sit on a "mushy" layer which allows them to slide and move.

When you date a rock using radiometric dating, what does the number actually mean?

The date when the minerals within the rock cooled and solidified.

Evidence for the Big Bang (microwave background, abundance of elements, red shift (Doppler effect))

1) everything is moving away with the farthest galaxies moving the fastest 2) the universe is full of low energy microwaves left over from the big bang 3) the ratio of the light elements that make up the interstellar gases (hydrogen, helium, and lithium) is consistent with the fusion happening for a very short period of time

Evidence for the Nebular Hypothesis

1) rocky planets close to sun, icy planets far from sun 2) planets close to sun are small, planets far from sun are large 3) all planets orbit in the same direction 4) all planets orbit in the same plane 5) everything in the solar system is the same age

The speed of plate motion in the tectonic system is approximately

1-10 centimeters per year

How far away is a distant galaxy in the observable universe?

10 billion light years

How old is the universe?

13.8-14 billion years old

How old is the Solar System?

4-5 billion years old

Which isotope is not particularly useful for dating geological events?

Carbon-14

Which of the following is one piece of the evidence for an iron-nickel core in the center of the earth?

Earth has a magnetic field.

Which of the following features are most commonly associated with converging plate boundaries between two continental plates?

Fold mountain belts

In spiral galaxies, the stars orbit around the center faster than predicted. What explains this?

Galaxies contain more mass than we can account for. It's called dark matter

Global temperatures have increased over the last 100 years. What evidence is there that human activities are at least partially responsible for this increase?

Ice cores show a correlation between global temperature and CO2, and humans have released a lot of CO2 in the last 100 years.

Absolute dating in the three types of rocks are:

Igneous: when it last cooled Sedimentary: when the sediment was last deposited Metamorphic: when it was last altered by heat and pressure

Igneous intrusive vs. extrusive

Intrusive: larger crystals Extrusive: air bubbles

How can you determine the mass of a planet you haven't been to?

Measure the motion of something that orbits the planet.

How can you determine the chemical composition of the atomsphere of a planet you haven't been to?

Measure the spectra of light it emits.

Of the following, which are compression waves?

P waves

The outer planets are much more massive and much lower density than the inner planets. Why did they form that way?

Planets form from solids. Near the sun, only rock and metal were solid. Further away, low density material solidified.

Which of the following tends to offset and slow the collapse of a protostar?

Pressure from the motion of hot hydrogen

Primary evidence for a liquid outer core is based on the fact that...

S waves do not travel through fluids

Which of the following provides evidence for a liquid core in the earth?

Shadow zone for S waves

Spiral galaxies typically contain large numbers of blue stars and bright nebulae, while elliptical galaxies typically contain mostly yellow and red stars. What can you conclude based on this information?

Spiral galaxies are actively forming new stars, while elliptical galaxies have little or no star formation going on.

What would be the best method to determine the distance to Proxima Centauri, the star nearest to our sun, at a distance of 4.3 light years away?

Take pictures of Proxima Centauri 6 months apart and measure how far it has traveled though the sky in that time relative to the background stars.

Which is not associated with a plate boundary?

The Grand Canyon

Which of the following are true of the Jovian planets?

The Jovian planets are larger (both in volume and mass) than the terrestrial planets.

Which of the following factors that impacts climate is wholly a natural factor rather one that is influenced by human activity?

The amount of energy the sun outputs.

The rock that makes up the ocean floor has alternating bands where the magnetic field points north, then south. What is the significance of these bands.

The bands occur symmetrically to each side of the ridge where new ocean crust is slowly being made. The Earth's magnetic field flips, and the field in the basalt points the same direction as the Earth's field when the rock formed.

Two main sequence stars, one red and one blue, are located the same distance from the Earth. If these stars are observed, what will you see?

The blue star is brighter.

Which of the following correctly describes how energy from the sun drives the hydrologic cycle on Earth?

The energy from the sun is transferred by radiation through the atmosphere to the oceans. This radiation is strongest near the equator, and most evaporation occurs there.

Lines shifted toward red end of spectrum means...

The galaxy is getting farther away from earth

When the absorption spectrum of light from distant galaxies is measured, what is found?

The lines in the absorption spectrum are shifted towards the red end of the spectrum, with light from the most distant galaxies being shifted by the largest amount.

Which statement about the lithosphere and asthenosphere is true?

Velocities of earthquake waves decrease as they cross from lithosphere to asthenosphere

A divergent plate margin runs between Antartica and South America. What will happen as a result?

The ocean seperating them will grow wider.

Which of the following provides proxy data that can be used to estimate temperatures in ancient climates?

The thickness of tree rings in ancient wood

Which of the following is true about our galaxy in relation to the rest of the universe?

There are a few dozen close galaxies that are moving towards the Milky Way or orbiting around it. But the rest of the galaxies are moving away.

What is the defining feature of a greenhouse gas?

They absorb IR photons at frequencies that are radiated by the Earth.

Which of the following is a main function of a transform boundary?

To connect segments of a spreading center ridge

True or False: Streams carry more sediment when moving quickly since the stream has more kinetic energy which is used to carry more sediment.

True

True or False: Waves refract and go faster in more solid layers than liquid.

True

Streams cut deep valleys as they travel through mountains, but the same streams deposit large amounts of material to form deltas when they reach the ocean. Why?

When streams are traveling down steep slopes the water has more kinetic energy. When the water is near the ocean, it slows down and moves slower.

The sun will eventually become a...

White dwarf

The shadow zone for P waves provides evidence for

abrupt density changes at Earth's mantle-core boundary

The greenhouse gases in the atmosphere

absorb mostly IR light

Which of the following type of star will our sun never have been during its life-cycle?

brown dwarf

Which of the following forces apply to the movement of a magma body?

buoyant force and gravity

Elements heavier than iron found on the Earth are produced

in supernova explosions

Intrusive vs. Extrusive Igneous Rocks

intrusive: solidified under the Earth (crystals) extrusive: solidified above the surface of the Earth (air bubbles)

What happens when water subducted during plate tectonics chemically combines with the surrounding rock?

it makes it melt easier

Transform boundaries cause...

just earthquakes

Outer Core

liquid iron

Mechanical layers of the Earth:

lithosphere, asthenosphere, mesosphere, outer core, inner core

Mesosphere

lower mantle, plastic but solid/rigid

Crust

made mostly of silicates

Mantle

made mostly of silicates and oxides

Core

made of iron

Continent-continent convergent boundaries cause...

mountains and earthquakes

S wave

moves the ground up and down (shear wave), can only travel through solid

The cosmological red shift seems to indicate that other galaxies are

moving away from the Milky Way galaxy with those farthest away moving the fastest.

Superposition

oldest rocks are on the bottom (parfait)

The major source of all surface water on the continents is

precipitation

Evidence for plate tectonics moving:

puzzle shapes of continents, glaciers, magnetite, fossils

The most important erosional agent of the hydrologic system is

running water

The most important erosional agent of the hydrological system is which of the following?

running water

Characteristics of Sedimentary Rocks:

sand grains or pebbles, fossil imprints visible

Sandstone, shale, and limestone are all examples of

sedimentary rocks

Inner Core

solid iron

Characteristics of Metamorphic Rocks:

sparkly crystals, ribbonlike layers or stripes

What type of galaxy is the Milky Way?

spiral galaxy

Original Horizontality

starts straight, but shifts over time (leaning tower of Pisa)

Principle of Inclusion

the background is younger than the top thing (cookie dough is younger than chocolate chips)

The primary source of evidence that the earth is a differentiated planet comes from the study of

the behavior of seismic waves

The distance to galaxies very far from our own can best be estimated using

the cosmological redshift

The forces opposing the expansion of the universe are due to

the gravitational interaction

When measuring the positions of the lines in the absorption spectrum of a certain star, the lines are all shifted toward the red end of the spectrum. This means:

the star is getting farther away from the earth

The fact that the warm season (summer) occurs in June-July-August in the northern hemisphere is due to the fact that

the tilt of the Earth is such that more radiation hits the Northern hemisphere during those months

What method of distance measurement discussed in this chapter makes use of the motion of the Earth around the Sun?

triangulation

Information about Earth's interior comes from all the following except...

tunnels through the center of the Earth

Athenosphere

upper mantle, solid but more like plastic (play dough), plate tectonics

How does water affect melting point?

water lowers the melting point of rocks

The sun will eventually become a

white dwarf