Final Geology

Front 1

The transformation of formerly productive lands into deserts is called ____________.

Back 1

desertification

Front 2

The size of material that is frequently carried as suspended load by wind is __________ and __________.

Back 2

silt- and clay-sized

Front 3

The most effective agent of erosion in the deserts is __________.

Back 3

water

Front 4

Stones whose polished, pitted, faceted surfaces have been produced by wind erosion are called __________.

Back 4

ventifacts

Front 5

Air flows from ________ pressure regions to ________ pressure regions.

Back 5

high, low

Front 6

The Coriolis effect causes winds to be deflected to the ________ of their direction of motion in the Northern Hemisphere and to the ________ of their direction of motion in the Southern Hemisphere.

Back 6

right, left

Front 7

Deserts receive less than __________ centimeters of rain per year, on average.

Back 7

25

Front 8

How much land area is converted to deserts globally each year?

Back 8

70,000 square kilometers

Front 9

The close-fitting mosaic of pebbles, cobbles, and boulders covering the floor of many deserts and semi-arid regions is called what?

Back 9

desert pavement

Front 10

What are windblown deposits of silt and clay called?

Back 10

loess

Front 11

What are long parallel ridges of sand aligned parallel to the wind direction?

Back 11

longitudinal

Front 12

What is Coriolis effect caused by?

Back 12

the rotation of the Earth

Front 13

A broad alluvial apron formed by the coalescence of alluvial fans is called a(n) _______.

Back 13

bajada

Front 14

The Stratosphere is unstable and well mixed

Back 14

false

Front 15

The Sun emits most of its energy as ___________ wave length radiation, and the earthe emits most as _________ wavelength radiation.

Back 15

short, long

2.

Based on energy balance, without its atmosphere, the Earth would be 33degrees F warmer than it is now.

Front 16

Why do deserts form at ~ 30 degrees N and 30 degreed S?

Back 16

The sun heats the air at the equator and it rises. As the moist air condenses, rain falls in tropic zones. The air begins to fall at 30 degrees due to the coriolis effect and creates a high pressure zone which is very dry. The air also warms as it descends and promotes more evaporation helping to further the dry climate.
Correct answer: Cooling dry air, descending from hadly cell circulation does not bring any moisture into the region, and is incapable of producing rain.

Front 17

The zone of the atmosphere in which weather occurs is the _________________

Back 17

Troposphere

Front 18

Briefly explain how a rainshadow desert forms.

Back 18

Air masses are forced to rise over mountains. As they do, they cool and moisture condenses and falls as precipitation. Upon descending the lee side of the mountain range, this air mass is dry. It heats and its aridity causes increased evaporation.

Front 19

Briefly explain how mesas and buttes form.

Back 19

A nearly horizontal resistant layer of rock is breached by weathering and erosion, allowing the underlying less resistant layers to be rapidly eroded. The flat-topped steep-sided erosional remnants are mesas, and further erosion leaves the pillar-like structures called buttes.

Front 20

What factors affect the type of dune that forms?

Back 20

Factors include vegetation coverage, direction and velocity of wind, and the amount of available sand.

Front 21

The distance wave-producing winds blow over a continuous body of water is the ____.

Back 21

fetch

Front 22

A beach with a wide berm, a gentle slope, and a smooth offshore profile is a(n) ____.

Back 22

summer beach

Front 23

What is a coast that is straight and has marine terraces called?

Back 23

emergent coast

Front 24

Waves are oscillations of the water surface.

Back 24

True

Front 25

Briefly explain what the effects of rising sea level are on the barrier islands along the United States coastlines, and why coastal communities are concerned.

Back 25

Rising sea levels cause erosion, shoreward migration of barrier islands, and even submergence of barrier islands. This is of concern because so many expensive properties are located on barrier islands, and barrier islands protect the mainland from erosion and flooding and are a part of the natural coastal wetland habitat.

Front 26

What characteristics along a seacoast indicate that erosion predominates over deposition?

Back 26

When erosion predominates over deposition, beaches are lacking or poorly developed and sea cliffs erode.

Front 27

The two important types of near shore currents are ____________________ currents and ____________________ currents.

Back 27

longshore, rip

Front 28

A spit that has lengthened until it closes the mouth of a bay is a(n) ____________________.

Back 28

baymouth bar

Front 29

Which principle states that in igneous intrusion or a fault is younger than the rocks which it intrudes or cuts?

Back 29

principle of cross-cutting relationships

Front 30

When radiometric dating is applied to metamorphic rocks, what is the date obtained?

Back 30

a minimum age for the parent rock

Front 31

A fossil that is particularly useful for correlation is an evolutionary fossil.

Back 31

false

Front 32

Time-stratigraphic units are units of rock sharing a specific lithology.

Back 32

false

Front 33

What is the principle of fossil succession, and what is its importance? Who is credited its discovery?

Back 33

The principle of fossil succession states that fossil assemblages succeed one another through time in a regular and predictable order and was recognized by William Smith. This principle allows correlation of rock units, by relative age, from one area to another.

Front 34

Why is it necessary to employ lithologic and fossil correlation to establish a relative sequence of geologic time?

Back 34

Most bodies of rock cannot be recognized as having been deposited during a short interval in geologic time in which the upper and lower surfaces of the rock body were contemporaneously deposited everywhere. The overlapping geologic ranges of fossil species allow definition of time intervals because each species is unique and had a definite duration.

Front 35

____________________ dating is used to obtain absolute age dates.

Back 35

Radiometric

Front 36

Different varieties of an atom that have a different number of neutrons in their nuclei are ____________________.

Back 36

isotopes

Front 37

The half-life of a radioactive element is the amount of time it takes for ____________________ of the atoms of the unstable ____________________ element to decay to atoms of a new, more stable ____________________ element.

Back 37

half, parent, daughter

Front 38

For evolution to occur, variation must occur and favorable conditions must exist for the variations to survive.

Back 38

true

Front 39

The only factor necessary for evolution to occur is that there must be variation in organisms in a population.

Back 39

false

Front 40

What are body fossils?

Back 40

Body fossils are fossilized hard skeletal parts, such as bones, teeth, and shells.

Front 41

Name some types of trace fossils.

Back 41

Trace fossils include tracks, trails, burrows, borings, nests, or other indications of the activities of organisms.

Front 42

The fossil record is biased because of selective preservation of organisms with ____________________ parts.

Back 42

hard

Front 43

Since all brachiopods have shells composed of calcium carbonate, if we find one in the fossil record composed of silicon dioxide, the preservation process must have been ____.

Back 43

replacement

Front 44

What is the addition of mineral matter to cavities or pores of bones, teeth, and shells called?

Back 44

permineralization

Front 45

Which organisms are most likely to be fossilized?

Back 45

c.invertebrates with shells
d.vertebrates with bones
e.C and D

Front 46

There is chemical evidence that life appeared by ________ and fossils by ________.

Back 46

3.8 billion years, 3.5 billion years

Front 47

What are time divisions in the Precambrian based on?

Back 47

radiometric age dates

Front 48

What do cyclothems represent?

Back 48

transgressive and regressive sequences

Front 49

The Precambrian is divided into the following two eons: __________ and __________.

Back 49

Archean and Proterozoic

Front 50

How did Laurentia evolve in the precambrian?

Back 50

Archean cratons were sutured together by a series of island arc and microcontinent collisions.

Front 51

What are believed to be the causes of global transgressive and regressive cycles?

Back 51

Changes in sea level resulting from major tectonic and glacial events

Front 52

What is the age of the Burgess Shale? What is its significance, and why did this unique preservation occur?

Back 52

The Burgess Shale dates from the Middle Cambrian. The animals and enclosing mud were transported by slumps to anaerobic conditions where bacterial activity could not destroy the buried animals. This allowed preservation of this unique assemblage of fossils of soft-bodied animals

Front 53

Briefly state some of the problems that plants had to overcome as they adapted to the land.

Back 53

Plants had to solve some of the same problems that animals did by dealing with the effects of desiccation and gravity. They had to develop a support system, and they had to develop a reproductive system that would operate in this new environment.

Front 54

What event was first in the breakup of Pangaea?

Back 54

The first event was rifting between Laurasia and Gondwana

Front 55

Whether a mutation is harmful or beneficial can only be judged in respect to the conditions in which the organism lives.

Back 55

true

Front 56

Sandstone-carbonate-shale assemblages are restricted to the Proterozoic.

Back 56

false

Front 57

How many major continents were present at the beginning of the Paleozoic Era?

Back 57

6

Front 58

What worldwide effect was caused by Gondwana moving over the South Pole during the Carboniferous Period?

Back 58

The extensive continental glaciation on Gondwana produced global changes in sea level.

Front 59

What is the name of the first major transgression onto the North American craton, and when did it begin?

Back 59

Sauk, Middle Cambrian

Front 60

The supercontinent that formed near the end of the Paleozoic from an assembling of all the continents was called ____________________.

Back 60

Pangaea

Front 61

The ____________________ orogeny in Europe is a mirror of the Taconic and Acadian orogenies in North America.

Back 61

Caledonian

Front 62

What are limestone structures constructed by living organisms which build a skeletal structure called?

Back 62

organic reefs

Front 63

The orogeny, which affected the northern Appalachians during the Late Silurian to the end of the Devonian, is known as the ____.

Back 63

Acadian Orogeny

Front 64

When and where did the Antler orogeny occur?

Back 64

Devonian, Cordillera of North America

Front 65

During the Paleozoic, cratons were covered with large bodies of water called ____________________.

Back 65

epeiric seas

Front 66

Most of the productive coal beds of Paleozoic age are found in rocks formed during the ____________________ period.

Back 66

Pennsylvanian

Front 67

A significant change in land-plant communities occurred in the Cretaceous with the evolution of what?

Back 67

angiosperms

Front 68

Mountain building in western North America did not begin until the Late Cretaceous Period.

Back 68

false

Front 69

More species went extinct at the end of the Permian than at the end of the Mesozoic.

Back 69

true

Front 70

The ____________________ Sea formed between the separating continents of Africa and Laurasia.

Back 70

tethys

Front 71

All except which of the following are important fossils groups from Silurian and Ordovician age rocks?

Back 71

trilobites

Front 72

One of the most significant roles of the exoskeleton is to provide protection from desiccation and predators.

Back 72

true

Front 73

Lung-fish are important in the fossil record because amphibians evolved from them.

Back 73

False

Front 74

Briefly state the problems that animals faced in their adaptation to the land.

Back 74

Because animals evolved in a moist environment, they had to adapt to the drying effects of the atmosphere, so they had to develop an outer skin covering for protection. They also had to develop a means to extract oxygen from the atmosphere rather than from water. Because animals need mobility to find food, they also had to develop a means of locomotion and a skeletal structure for support. Finally their reproductive system had to combat the problems of desiccation of unprotected eggs.

Front 75

Describe the characteristics of an excellent guide fossil and give one example.

Back 75

The ammonoids are excellent guide fossils because of distinctive physical features, short life span, and wide geographic distribution.

Front 76

By the end of the Permian, small mammal-like reptiles, called ____________________, evolved from the pelycosaur.

Back 76

therapsids

Front 77

The Carboniferous flora in coal-forming swamps was dominated by ____________________ plants.

Back 77

seedless vascular

Front 78

At the height of the Great Ice Age, the present desert regions of southwestern United States ____.

Back 78

had large lakes form in intermontane basins

Front 79

Tertiary reservoirs of the Gulf Coastal Plain and southern California are important in U.S. petroleum production.

Back 79

True

Front 80

What are the mountain ranges that have been produced by plate convergence associated with the Alpine orogeny?

Back 80

the Pyrenees, Alps, Apennines, and Atlas

Front 81

The ____________________ orogeny resulted in the formation of the Himalaya Mountains.

Back 81

Himalayan

Front 82

The plate tectonic activity that gave rise to orogens around much of the circum-Pacific orogenic belt was ____________________.

Back 82

subduction

Front 83

The plate tectonic activity that is taking place along the western margin of South America is ____________________.

Back 83

subduction

Front 84

The sea that covered the Gulf Coastal Plain in the Early Tertiary was the ____________________ sea.

Back 84

Tejas

Front 85

During the last two million years, there have been at least ______ warm-cold cycles.

Back 85

20

Front 86

The sea level (decreased/increased) ____________________ (amount) ____________________ during the maximum glacial coverage of the Pleistocene.

Back 86

decreased, 130 meters

Front 87

The Himalayas today are ____.

Back 87

B and C

seismically active
a place of mountain building

Front 88

The angle of the subducted slab during the Laramide orogeny was ____.

Back 88

very shallow causing deformation far inland

Front 89

What did the extinction at the end of the Pleistocene affect?

Back 89

terrestrial mammals weighing more than 40 Kg

Front 90

The Colorado Plateau has many deep canyons due to downcutting by rivers.

Back 90

true