Oceanography True or False

All continents fit together with the lest humber of overlaps and gaps when the continents are matched along current shorelines.

False

An eastern boundary current is generally narrow and swift.

False

Biogenous sediment usually contains abundant calcite below the calcite compensation depth.

False

Current scientific knowledge indicates that the most likely organon of most of Earth's oceans was due to comets from outer space.

False

Harry Hess was the first person to advance the idea of continental drift.

False

Hot spots are characteristics of oceanic-oceanic convergent plate boundaries.

False

Many of the unique properties of water are attracted to the fact that water exists in three states of matter on Earth's surface.

False

Organisms found at mid-ocean ridges are able to survive in the absence of sunlight because the light generated by the undersea lava flows is enough for photosynthesis to occur.

False

Our planet's extreme climate is one of the main reasons life exists on Earth.

False

Rogue waves are generated by destructive interference patterns of ocean swells.

False

Surface currents affect about 90% of the world's ocean water.

False

Surface or wind-driven currents move water primarily in a vertical direction in the ocean.

False

Terrigenous sediment is another name for biogenies sediment.

False

The Arctic Ocean is mostly, but not entirely, in the southern hemisphere

False

The Atlantic Ocean is the shallowest ocean in the world

False

The Pacific Ring of Fire is home other majority of Earth's active volcanoes and large earthquakes because of the prevalence of divergent plate boundaries along the Pacific Rim.

False

The San Andreas Fault is associated with volcanic activity.

False

The White Cliffs of Dover are made from a total of five coccolithophores tests.

False

The four principal ocean basing (plus an additional ocean) on Earth are the Atlantic, Antarctic, Southern, Mediterranean.

False

The lithosphere is composed only of outer mantle material.

False

The speed of a shallow water wave is a function of wave period.

False

The transfer of water between the atmosphere, the oceans, and the continents is known as the geologic cycle.

False

The vertical distance between the wave trough and the wave crest is the wavelength.

False

Thermohaline circulation is wind-driven.

False

Western boundary currents such as the Gulf Stream transport warm water from the tropics towards higher latitudes.

False

A fracture zone is seismically inactive, occurs beyond offset mid-ocean ridge segments, and the relative movement between two points on either side of the feature is in the same direction.

True

A very important way to increase the settling rate of fine particles in the open ocean is via fecal pellets.

True

A wave train moves more slowly than individual waves.

True

Along the margins of the Pacific are found most of Earth's oceanic trenches.

True

An area of the ocean where rapid change in ocean density occurs with a change in depth is the pycnocline.

True

Deep ocean currents often move cold, dense water away from the poles and have characteristic temperatures and salinities.

True

Deep water waves move faster than shallow water waves because they are not sowed by friction with the ocean bottom.

True

Few abyssal plains are located in the Pacific Ocean because the deep-ocean trenches found on the convergent active margins of the Pacific Ocean prevent sediment from moving past the continental slope.

True

In the northern hemisphere, Ekman transport pushes surface water to the right of the wind direction.

True

Marine sediment accumulations are interesting to oceanographers because they often contain microscopic fossils that provide clues to the past geographic distributions of marine organisms.

True

Microscopic biogeneous ooze is common on the deep ocean floor because there is so little lithogenous sediment deposited at great distances from the continents that could dilute the biogenies material.

True

Most of the physical properties of pure eater and seawater are very similar because seawater is 96.5% water

True

Radioactive materials can sometimes be used to determine the ages of rocks.

True

Satellites are used to map the ocean floor because the shape of the ocean surface reflects large features on the seafloor.

True

Stanley Miller's 1952 experiment created organic compounds from the chemical ingredients thought to exist in Earth's early ocean.

True

The European "Age o fDiscovery" began with Christopher Columbus' discovery of the "New World".

True

The Himalaya Mountains are an example of continental-continental convergent plate boundary.

True

The Mid-Atlantic Ridge is an examples of a divergent plate boundary.

True

The Pacific Ocean is associated wit the most tsunamis.

True

The Protoearth's structure was homogeneous

True

The Sun and the rest of the solar system formed about 5 billion years ago from a huge cloud of dust and gas called a nebula.

True

The circular movement of surface water currents are driven by the major wind belts are called gyres.

True

The deepest part of the ocean exceeds the height of Mount Everest.

True

The orbital motion of water molecules in a wave goes down to a depth equal to the wavelength divided by two.

True

The seafloor magnetic pattern is best described as parallel to and symmetric about mid-ocean ridges.

True

Thick sediment accumulations occur on the continental shelves and rises, especially near the mouths of major rivers because these locations are close to major sources of lithogenous sediment.

True

Tsunamis can be generated by geological activity that causes a sudden change in sea floor elevation such as submarine fault motion.

True

Volcanoes on the seafloor that are flat-topped because of wave erosion are called tablemounts.

True

Wind speed, duration, and fetch are the three conditions necessary to produce a fully developed sea.

True

Abyssal clays are commonly red-brown or buff in color because they contain gypsum.

False

Active continental margins are characterized by broad continental shelves.

False

A shallow åter wave must form in water depth less than 100 meters.

False

A tentative, testable statement about the general nature of a phenomenon is called a theory.

False

A wave will break when wave steepness is equal to 1/20.

False

A curling wave formed over an air pocket is called a plunging breaker

True