Study guide for final

· Review MCQ from quizzes

· Look at diagrams, tables and pictures that are in your textbook and in the notes on Bb that explain geologic processes (Pay special attention to tables and diagrams that are Maria’s favorites…).

List of essential things to know…

EARTHQUAKES and Earth Interior

· Define earthquake. What are the focus and epicenter of an earthquake?

· Describe the types of waves emitted during an earthquake. Which are typically most damaging?

· What are seismographs? How can be used to locate the epicenter of an earthquake? (in class Exercise)

· Explain the differences among Richter magnitude, Moment magnitude and Mercally intensity.

· Relate earthquake activity to plate tectonics setting (Plate Tectonic boundaries).

· Locate the epicenter of an earthquake. What information does a travel-time graph provide? Be able to use the triangulation method to locate the epicenter of an earthquake

· Explain what the destructive effects of earthquakes are. What is a tsunami? How are they produced? What is liquefaction? Examples (recall in class videos)

· Earth Interior: Discuss some of the different paths that seismic waves can take as they move through the earth. Can P and S waves move through the inner and outer core? Why?

TOPOGRAPHIC MAPS: Study the reading assignment from handouts provided in class, exercises, video and reading guide posted on Bb. Given a map you should be able to:

· Know how to determine elevations and terrain features: elevation, depressions, v-rule.

· Be able to convert between map scales: graphic, verbal and fractional

· Read and draw contour lines

· Draw a topographic profile or cross section

· Define and calculate gradient and relief between two points

MASS WASTING PROCESSES:

· Define mass wasting processes

· Describe the various mass wasting processes according to the type of material involved, the rate and type of movement

· What are the factors involved in mass wasting?

· Identify resisting and driving forces of mass movement

· Discuss how and why mass wasting occurs: How gravity and water determine mass wasting? what is the angle of repose? Discuss driving forces vs. resisting forces (in class examples)

· What natural and human factor can trigger mass movements?

· Real case events

STREAM PROCESSES:

· Explain the Hydrologic Cycle: Reservoirs and pathways

· How do streams erode and transport Sediment? How are particles transported in streams?

· Deposition by Running Water

· Describe the two principal types of streams channel (meander and braided). Stream related landforms: cut bank, point bar, oxbow lake, floodplain, levees, etc.

· What are deltas and alluvial fans? Where do they form?

· In class exercises

GROUNDWATER

· Groundwater and the Hydrologic Cycle: Earth water reservoirs and their relative abundance

· What Is the Water Table?

· Explain in complete sentences what is:

· Porosity and Permeability

· What are aquifers, aquitards? Types of aquifers: confined/ unconfined.

· Flowing and not flowing artesian wells

· What earth materials form the best aquifers

· How Does Groundwater Move?. Water table contour lines (exercises from handouts and home assignment)

· What is the cone of depression? How does it form?

CONTINENTAL GACIATION

· What are glaciers? What factors determine whether or not glaciers will form in a region?

· How glacial ice move?

· Be able to draw a cross-section of a glacier and label: snowline, zone of wastage, zone of accumulation, front or terminus, fractures

· Discuss glacier budget: what factor control whether a glacier advance or retreat?

· How do glaciers erode bedrock?

· Landforms associated with continental glaciers: drumlins, eskers, kames, terminal moraines, out-wash plain deposits, kettles . Identify them on a diagram and/map, Know how they form:

· Differences between till and outwash deposits

· What did North America look like during the last Ice Age?

· Discuss the main causes of ice ages

· Explain how ice cores can be used to determine past temperatures.