Unit 10
The great 1960 Chile earthquake (M 9.5) unleashed a tsunami that killed over 1,000 Chileans. These waves also killed 61 people in Hilo, Hawaii, 14 hours after the earthquake, and another 185 people in ________, 22.5 hours after the earthquake.
Japan
Evidence demonstrating that the crater in Arizona formed by meteorite impact includes all but which of the following?
A 550-ton spherical piece of nickel-iron metallic meteorite was found in the bottom of the crater
In 1883, this volcano exploded and the resulting tsunami killed 36,000 people on Java and Sumatra.
Krakatau
The Sun's energy heats all parts of the Earth equally.
False
There is little threat of a tsunami striking the east coast of the United States.
False
In 1883, Edvard Munch created his famous painting The Scream after witnessing a blood red sky over Oslo, Norway, caused by the eruption of _________.
Krakatau Volcano, Indonesia
Estimating the magnitude of the K/T boundary impact earthquake can be done by scaling up from the energy released in nuclear explosions, leading to an estimate of a K/T impact earthquake of magnitude 11.3.
True
Pyroclastic flows can travel across bodies of water.
True
The major types of meteorites are either "irons" (metallic) or "stones" (rocky).
True
The most famous of the comets is the one carrying Edmund Halley's name, the man who calculated its orbit in 1682 and predicted its return to the inner solar system.
True
The outer planets lie at great distances from the Sun, and are composed mainly of hydrogen and helium gas surrounding rocky cores (except for Pluto); they commonly are orbited by icy moons and rings of icy debris with compositions of water (H2O), ammonia (NH3), carbon dioxide (CO2), and methane (CH4).
True
In 1973 the town of Vestmannaeyjar on the island of Heimaey (off the coast of Iceland), was devastated by pyroclastic flows which completely filled and closed the town's harbor.
false
In the last 30 million years, the region between the eastern Sierra Nevada in California and the Wasatch Mountain front in central Utah has contracted in an east-west direction, so Nevada is now half of its former width.
false
The 1-cm-thick clay layer that marks the Cretaceous/Tertiary (K/T) boundary has a high percentage of the element ________ in the clay layer, an enrichment about 300 times greater than the normal abundance.
iridium
In 1994, the comet Shoemaker-Levy crashed with spectacular results into _____________.
jupiter
Glass is opaque to _________ radiation.
long-wavelength
The presence of water ________ the melting point of rock.
lowers
Another class of active faults is created by southern California pushing into the "Big Bend" of the San Andreas fault. These faults are __________________.
mostly east-west-oriented thrust faults (reverse faults)
We know that the part of California on the Pacific plate will not break off in a giant earthquake and sink into the Pacific Ocean because ______________________.
of isostasy
When a meteorite large enough to cause a crater hits the Earth, the size of the impact crater is ________________.
perhaps 10-20 times the diameter of the meteorite
Likely effects of the Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary impact include all but which of the following?
significant long-term cooling in the oceans but warming in continental areas
Some of Earth's most beautiful mountains are ________, including Mt. Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, Mt. Shasta in California, Mt. Rainier in Washington, and Mt. Fuji in Japan.
stratovolcanoes
The solar wind is ___________________.
the stream of subatomic particles flying outward from the Sun
The large left step in the San Andreas fault in the Los Angeles area causes compressive ruptures along east-west-oriented ________ faults as in the 1971 San Fernando and 1994 Northridge events.
thrust
A comet may travel 100,000 astronomical units away during its orbit (an astronomical unit is 93 million miles, the distance between Earth and Sun).
true
Basaltic magma has the lowest viscosity, so more of it reaches the surface; the more viscous rhyolitic magmas are so sluggish that they tend to be trapped deep below the surface where they cool, solidify, and grow into the larger mineral crystals of plutonic rocks.
true
Geologists have shown that the east coast of the United States faces a serious tsunami threat from ________.
volcanic flank collapse in the Canary Islands
Which state accounts for the greatest percentage of all U.S. earthquakes of magnitude 3.5 and above?
Alaska
Asteroids lie mostly __________________.
Both between Mars and Jupiter and between the inner and outer planets are correct
During the 1990's, hundreds of trees were killed at Mammoth Mountain, California, by the diffuse emission of _________ gas.
CO2
A major comet or meteorite impact occurred in Mexico at the time boundary between the _______________.
Cretaceous and Tertiary
Hot spots occur only under oceanic plates.
False
Asteroids are distinguished from meteorites by their composition.
False
During the summer of 1783, the greatest lava eruption of historic times poured forth at _________, accompanied by the release of an enormous volume of gases that enshrouded much of northern Europe in a "dry fog" or blue haze rich in SO2 (one of the visible components of today's urban smog).
Laki, Iceland
In 1959, the water stored behind Hegben Lake Dam in Montana began to slosh violently back and forth in a series of oscillating waves. These seiches were caused by __________________.
a sudden drop of the lake bottom during an earthquake
The fraction of solar energy reflected back to space due to Earth's cloudiness or snow and ice cover is known as ______________.
albedo
The 17 January 1994 Northridge earthquake in Los Angeles was generated on a _______ thrust fault.
blind
Halley's comet contains carbon (C), hydrogen (H), oxygen (O), and nitrogen (N) in ratios similar to that in the human body.
true
Jet streams are relatively narrow bands of high-velocity winds that flow from west to east at high altitudes.
true
Space debris that collides with the Earth comes primarily from fragmented asteroids and secondarily from comets.
true
