EAR 105

Which of the following statements is FALSE? The principle of

inclusions say rock containing inclusions is older than the inclusions

Which of the following statements is false? Felsic magma

is less viscous than mafic magmas

A good example of a mineral that is a sheet silicate is

mica

The Earth's magnetic field is generated by

the outer core

Using this diagram that shows and example of how rocks can change in the rock cycle, which of the following lists properly defines the numbered processes?

1. Weathering/transport/deposition/lithification. 2. Heat and pressure 3. Melting

How old is the Earth?

4.5 billion years old

Plates move at velocities that are approximately

5.0 cm per year

Very large mountain ranges such a s the Himalayas were most likely formed by:

A convergent plate boundary

The principle of cross-cutting relations tells us that:

A feature that cross-cuts or truncates another feature must be younger than the feature it cross cuts

Refraction of seismic waves traveling though the Earth occurs when:

A seismic wave travels though layers of different densities

The efficiency of erosion by a river depends on

All of the above

Which of the following principles of stratigraphy are used for determining the relative ages of strata?

All of the above

Which of the following rocks is intermediate in composition and common formed on strato/composite volcanoes?

Andesite

Continental ice sheets today are only found in

Antarctica and Greenland

Identify the false statement. Lavas of low viscosity, like those on Hawaii,

Are most often cool temperature lavas

This image shows Earth's geothermal gradient. If you could drill all the way though the Earth, in what layer would you experience the greatest increase in temperature per kilometers?

At the core mantle boundary

Seismic waves can be created by many processes (even you jumping up and down on the ground or by atomic bomb blasts), but what is the most common way that seismic waves are formed on Earth?

By earthquakes

The exact (numeric) age of Earth is determined by what method and using what materials?

By radiometric dating Earth's oldest rocks

The core is compromised of a liquid outer core and solid inner core. This has been confirmed by

By seismic waves

The two main types of sedimentary rocks are

Chemical and clastic

The dissolution of limestone exposed at Earth's surface is an example of

Chemical weathering

The strong tendency of certain minerals to break along smooth, parallel planes is known as

Cleavage

What kind of force causes the fault shown in the diagram on the right?

Compression

Point B marks what kind of plate boundary?

Convergent

What types of bonds are strongest?

Covalent bonds

What types of chemical bonds occur when atoms share electrons?

Covalent bonds

In the cross section above, we can say that B is younger than D by using the law of________

Cross-Cutting relationships

Which of the following is NOT a method for determining the numerical age of a rock?

Cross-cutting relations

To determine the relative age of a fault, you would most likely apply the principle of:

Cross-cutting relationships

Rivers ultimately deposit the sediment they carry in lakes or the ocean and form________ where sediment piles up at the mouth of the river

Deltas

Marie Tharp was one of the pioneers in the development of the theory of plate tectonics by developing

Detailed maps of the sea floor

What kind of force causes the fault shown in the diagram of the right?

Extension

Rivers are confined to a narrow area called channels where the flow typically remains. However rivers are free to move (meander) about a broad area called________

Flood plains

The landforms that comprise Cape Cod in Massachusetts and Long Island in NY are the result of

Glacial processes during the last ice age 18,000 years ago

Continental crust is commonly made out of this felsic, intrusive rock:

Granite

Which of the following conditions allows continental ice sheets to form?

Heavy snowfalls in winter coupled with relatively cool summers

The earliest nebulae to form in the Universe were made almost entirely of these simple elements

Hydrogen and Helium

Which of the following sequences of events explains the transition part of a rock that experienced melting then cooling, burial to deep depths during mountain building, and then uplift and weathering?

Igneous, metamorphic, sedimentary

Identify the true statement:

In a granite that contains quartz, mica and feldspar, the most resistant mineral to weathering is quartz

The principle of superposition tells us that:

In a sequence of undeformed strata, the oldest layer will be at the bottom and the youngest will be at the top

The principle of original horizontality tells us that:

In undisturbed strata, sediments were originally deposited in horizontal layers due to gravitational setting

The volatile gases in explosive volcanoes are derived from what process?

Incorporation of mostly water and carbon dioxide derived from sediments on the subjecting oceanic lithosphere

When light from the Sun hits earth's surface it is absorbed and released as

Infrared radiation

Which of the following is not one of the major classes of sedimentary rocks?

Intrusive

We discussed a new idea in class that suggested that what important element was potentially brought to Earth by collision with a planetesimal?

Iron

The "snow line" on a glacier divides the zone of ablation from the zone of accumulation is really recognizable when viewing a glacier or seeing a photo. It separates the zone of accumulation from the zone of ablation.

It appears as a change in color of the ice from white (snow covered) to tinged with gray (rocks and sediments)

The crust is above the mantle because

It is less dense than the mantle

Use the diagram to find the false statement. Point A represents a material that fits the following description

It is magma

The Earth resides in a unique region called the Habitable Zone. It is called this because

It's the region that it has temperatures that allow for the presence of liquid water

Jupiter, Saturn and Neptune are:

Jovian gas giants

In the cross section above, _______ is older than________

L; N

The spectacular rock cliff features of Yosemite National Park in California owe their origin to

Large systems of mountain glaciers during the last ice age

Rivers build natural barriers that limit the impact of small floods on surrounding areas, what are these features called?

Levees

Sand moves along beaches in a way that is similar to rivers via a process called

Long-shore transport

In natural, large river systems the channel belt has an elevation that typically higher or lower than the surrounding floodplain?

Lower than the surrounding floodplain

Mafic rocks have less Si than felsic rocks, this results in

Magmas that are not viscous and rocks that have a relatively high density

Which of the following is FALSE? Deltas

Make poor farmland because they flood regularly and flooding reaches out the minerals

The burial and compression of sedimentary rock under extremely high pressure that occurs in convergent boundaries results in the formation of what types of rocks?

Metamorphic

Mafic rocks are often enriched in these elements, w which helps to make them more dense than felsic rocks

Mg and Fe

The volcanism that is responsible for the formation of the sea floor occurs primarily at what type of location?

Mid-ocean ridges

The diagram on the right represents what kind of fault?

Normal

Which of the following statements is NOT true about the ocean floor?

Oceanic crust is primarily composed of granite

In the cross section above, E is _________ G

Older than

What are the two most abundant elements on Earth?

Oxygen (O) and Iron (Fe)

P wave shadow zone exist because:

P waves refract when passing through layers of the Earth

Which of the following statements is true?

Pieces of broken rock produced by physical weathering are collectively called clasts

The various geologic settings in which rocks can melt, metamorphose, or become sediment are ultimately generated by

Plate tectonics

The magnitude of a temperature increase due to greenhouse warming will be largest in the ________

Polar regions

Which of the following is NOT considered sediment?

Quartz crystals in granite

S wave shadow zone exist because:

S wave cannot pass through the liquid outer core

What is the most logical past environment to have produced a deposit consisting of vey little sand and mud, but instead lots of broken-up calcium carbonate shells of marine organism?

Shallow-water coral reef

What kind of force causes the fault shown in the diagram of the right?

Shear (like scissors)

Which group of minerals are the most abundant in the Earth's crust?

Silicates

As a sediment is transported downstream, away from its point of origin, the particles become

Smaller

The diagram of the right represents what kind of fault?

Strike-slip

Which of the following does NOT contribute to long-term climate change?

Sunspot activity

How are igneous rocks classified?

Texture and composition

How are sedimentary rocks classified?

Texture and composition

Igneous rocks that contain water melt at lower temperatures than a corresponding dry version of the same rock because

The addition of volatiles in wet rock lowers their melting temperature

Radiometric dating relies on knowing the half life of a radiogenic element. Half life is:

The amount of time for half of a parent element to decay into the daughter element

Conglomerate and Breccia both have large cobbles of pebble sized clasts contained in a finer grained matrix (think raisins in bread). The large clasts in breccia are angular and the large clasts in conglomerate are rounded. What can you say about the degree of transport and physical weathering?

The breccia has undergone less transport and weathering

The time between the first arrival of P waves and S waves allows geophysicist monitoring a seismic station to determine:

The exact location of an earthquake

Carbon-14 dating is not a good method for determining the age of at the carbon containing materials that are relatively old (older than 35,000 years old). This is because

The half life of carbon-14 is too short

What happens when you expose halite to water?

The ionic bonds break and it dissolves

Intrusive igneous rocks have crystal sizes that are relatively large, this occurs because

The magma solidifies slowly

Referring to the diagram, which of the following statements is true as material transitions from point A to point B on the diagram

The material decreases in pressure and starts initial melting

What characteristic makes silicate minerals more stable?

The number of oxygens shared between each silicon atom

A transition from point C to point D results in what change in conditions

The pressure increases and the temperature increases resulting in melting of a rock

Point A is over a mid ocean ridge, what occurs at a mid-ocean ridge?

The production of oceanic crust

If a seismic station is located in the P wave shadow zone for a particular earthquake:

The seismic station will not record any waves

What evidence supports the fact that carbon dioxide added to the atmosphere is derived from the burning of fossil fuels?

The stable and radiogenic isotope composition

The Chile Trench running along the west coast of South America was most likely formed by:

The subduction of Nazca Plate under the South American Plate

_________ controls a mineral's hardness on the Mow's hardness scale.

The type and strength of atomic bonds within the mineral

What seafloor feature is under point B?

Trench

18,000 years ago Syracuse was covered by a few kilometers of glacial ice

True

The two gases responsible for the largest proportion of Earth's greenhouse effect are

Water and carbon dioxide

Which of the following statement about the hydrologic cycle is FALSE?

Water that manages to infiltrate the land is lost to the cycle

The chain of volcanoes along the west coas of North America that comprise the Cascade Range of the Pacific Northwest exists because

an oceanic plate is sliding past the North American plate and heading to the northwest

Heavy elements, such as gold and uranium

are formed during a supernova

Magnetic anomalies, such as those in the picture to the left, are formed

because Earth's magnetic field oscillates between being centered on the north pole and south pole

Alfred Wegener published a book called "The Origin of the Continents and Oceans" in 1912 that was very controversial at the tie. In i he described what important theory that served as a precursor for plate tectonics?

continental drift

The asthenosphere is

warm enough to flow slowly

The moon

was formed by the collision of Earth with a Mars-sized protoplanet

A stratigraphic formation is:

A layer of specific rock types

Which of the following principles of stratigraphy are used for deterring the relative ages of strata?

All of the above

Which of the following statements is FALSE? The Mississippi River Delta

Developed its shape because the ocean current there was stronger than the river current

Which arrangement of tetrahedral forms the most stable minerals?

E

Magmas with high volatile content tend to have:

Explosive eruptions

Are points E and F getting farther apart, closer together or staying the same distance apart?

Farther apart

Formation of clastic sedimentary rocks involves five stages. Which of the following describes mechanical/physical weathering?

Fracturing of igneous rock by freeze-thaw processes

The evolution thought in the early days of astronomy led to a transition from the

Geocentric model to the Heliocentric model

Mt St Helens erupted explosively in 1980. Geologist find evidence of many eruptions of Mt St Helens, dating back 37,000 years. The mountain is composed of layer of lava and pyroclastics. Which of the following is therefore most likely to be true?

Mt St Helens is a composite volcano or stratovolcano

In the cross citing section above, ________ is younger than________

N; L

Direct observation of protoplanetary disks around exoplanets has confirmed what theory?

Nebular theory

Which one of the following is the most abundant gas in the atmosphere?

Nitrogen

The diagram on the right represents what kind of fault?

Reverse

According to the diagram below, which sediment sample is considered mature and why?

Sample 3, because it contains well-sorted, rounded quartz grains

Why is it difficult to date sedimentary rocks directly?

Sedimentary rocks are younger than their composite minerals

Most of out knowledge about Earth's interior comes from _______

Seismic waves during earthquakes

The lithosphere comprises portions of which two laters in the above image?

The crust and the upper mantle

The formation of sedimentary rocks require_______

Weathering and transport of pre-existing rocks

Plate tectonics took so long to become an accepted theory because

Wegener's could not provide a mechanism for how continents moved

Is nitrous oxide a greenhouse gas?

Yes

Glaciers and ice sheets form because________

The snow that accumulates during winters does not entirely melt during the summer

Heavy elements such as Platinum (Pt) and Gold (Au) are in very low abundance int he solar system because

They are only formed during a super nova

Which of the following is not true of sedimentary rocks

They form under high heat and high pressure

The global occurrence of earthquakes reveals that

They occur on the boundaries of plates or at hotspots

The boundaries between Earth's layers

exist because of abrupt changes in density

Atoms that are not neutrally charged are called

Ions

Why is a glass not a mineral?

It does not have a fixed crystalline structure

Which of the following is not characteristic of a rock

It has a definable chemical composition

When you scrape a mineral along a ceramic plate to observe the color of its powder, you are checking the physical property known as

Streak