GEOL120 Exam 1

Exponential Growth

# of people added to the population is not constant; constant % of population are added each year; P=Ne^rt

What are characteristics of Earth's internal structure?

..

How does volcanism affect rocks?

...

What are the major rock laws?

1. Law of Original Horizontality- rocks align horizontal naturally when deposited 2. Law of Superposition- oldest on bottom & youngest on top 3. Law of Cross Cutting Relationships- rock is younger if it can cuts

How can we use seismology to learn about the internal structure of Earth?

By measuring the p and s waves and the time it takes for them we can measure the depth of certain layers

What is the internal structure of the Earth and it's characteristics?

Crust (continental and oceanic)- very thin layer, mantle-lithososphere and asthenosphere, liquid outer core, solid inner core

Sustainability

Development which ensures that future generations will have equal access to the resources that Earth supplies

What are the basic types of plate boundaries?

Divergent, convergent, and transform

Steady State

Input = Output

Why is population growth an environmental problem?

Limited resources

Freshwater salinization and nitrogen pollution

Road salt and/or fertilizer gets into water supply; salt addition to the road increases build up in groundwater and in freshwater streams

How have humans altered the nitrogen cycle and what are the consequences?

Surplus of food caused excess fertilizer (which contains nitrogen) to

What was Wegener's theory and why was it accepted/rejected?

That 200 million years ago there was a supercontinent called Pangea

Residence Time

a measure of the time it takes for the total stock or supply of a material to be cycled through a system

What are minerals, isotopes, atoms, and different types of chemical bonding?

a naturally occurring solid Earth material that formed by geological processes, atoms of same element w varied # of neutrons, smallest part of a chemical element; ionic, covalent, metallic, wander Waal

Why has Earth's population increased?

agriculture, sanitation, modern medicine and inexpensive energy sources

What are subduction zones, mid-oceanic ridge, and hot spots?

areas where one plate sinks beneath another and is destroyed, where new crust is continuously added to the edges of lithospheric plates, volcanic centers resulting from hot rocks produced deep in the mantle

Five spheres

atmosphere, hydrosphere, biosphere, geosphere, cryosphere

What is acid mine drainage, where does it occur and what causes it?

environmental degradation exposes sulfides and oxidizes them, combining with water to form sulfuric acid that enters streams

What is an input-output analysis and what are three scenarios for how pool/stock changes?

helps to analyze change in an open system 1. no change 2.pool stock is reduced 3. pool stock grows

What are important characteristics of the major rock types?

igneous- cooled, crystallized/solidified from magma, dictated by rates of magma cooling; sedimentary - formed at the surface; metamorphic- heat, pressure, and chemically active fluids change mineralogy and texture

What are intrusive and extrusive igneous rocks?

intrusive- magma cools slowly crystallizes well below the surface of Earth; extrusive- crystallizes at the surface

Seafloor spreading and the lines of evidence

new oceanic lithosphere is produced at the diverging plate boundary; ocean floor bulging at the ridge of rising volcanic activity

Scientific method

observation, hypothesis, testing/experiments, theory

Uniformitarianism

processes similar in past, but with different magnitude or frequency

Catastrophism

rapid changes linked to large events; local, regional or planetary scale

What is a rock/ describe rock cycle

rock- aggregate of one or more minerals, cycle- crystallization of molten rock --> igneous, accumulated layers of sediment eventually undergo chemical and physical changes -->sedimentary, altered in form by heat, pressure, or chemically active fluids --> metamorphic

Earth Systems science

study of the entire planet as a system in terms of it's components

What is isostasy and how does it relate to mountain building?

the principle that whereby thicker, more buoyant crust stands topographically higher than crust that is thinner and denser; since the rocks they're composed from are less dense than rocks beneath, they "float" on top of denser mantle