Plate Tectonics & Movements
What is the crust (lithosphere)?
What are the 3 largest sources of energy for the United States?
What is petroleum, natural gas, and coal?
What are the 5 characteristics all minerals must have?
What is...
- Occur naturally
- Inorganic
- Solid
- Definite chemical composition
- Repeating crystal structure
Compare and contrast physical weathering and chemical weathering.
What is...
- Both break rocks down into smaller pieces!
- Physical weathering does not change the composition of the rock, while chemical weathering does.
Name the soil horizons from top to bottom.
What is organic matter, topsoil, eluviation layer, subsoil, parent rock, bedrock (O, A, E, B, C, R)?
Which of the following can occur at a subduction zone?
Volcanoes, Mid-Ocean Ridges, Trenches, Earthquakes
What is volcanoes, earthquakes, and trenches?
Where are oil deposits found most abundantly in the world?
What is the middle east (Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran)?
What scale is used to determine a mineral's hardness, AND what are the softest and hardest minerals?
What is...
- The Mohs Hardness Scale
- Softest: Talc, Hardest: Diamond
What are the 3 types of sedimentary rocks, AND how do they form?
What is...
- Clastic: Weathering and erosion of pre-existing rocks
- Chemical: Mineral deposits from solution
- Organic: Remains of plants and animals
Rank the following from LARGEST to SMALLEST: Silt, Clay, Sand
What is sand, silt, clay?
What is the name for the exact underground location where an earthquake occurs?
What is the focus?
Provide 2 advantages and 2 disadvantages of using fossil fuels.
What is...
- Fossil fuel plants are cheap and are a reliable source of electricity.
- Fossil fuel plants produce large amounts of carbon dioxide, which drives climate change, they create pollutants, and fossil fuels need to be transported over long distances (which can lead to hazmat spills).
If magma cools slowly, what size will the crystals be?
What is large?
What are the 4 types of metamorphism, AND what are the 2 categories of metamorphic rocks?
What is...
- Types of Metamorphism: Contact, Dynamic, Regional, and Hydrothermal
- Categories: Foliated and Non-foliated
Name and describe the 3 ways wind can erode soil.
What is...
- Creep: Rolling or sliding across the ground
- Saltation: Bouncing
- Suspension: Moving in the air
What destructive phenomenon can occur along the coast if a plate moves in the middle of the ocean, AND what type of plate boundary is involved?
What is a tsunami caused by a subduction zone at a convergent plate boundary?
Choose 1 type of renewable energy and 1 type of nonrenewable energy. Explain how each generates electricity.
What is...
- Geothermal Power (Renewable): Steam from heat below the Earth's surface can turn a turbine to generate electricity.
- Fossil Fuels (Nonrenewable): Burning coal, oil, or natural gas can create gases that turn turbines to generate electricity.
- Hydroelectric Power (Renewable): Water from dams can turn a turbine to generate electricity.
- Wind Power (Renewable): Wind can turn roto blades, which are attached to a shaft within a turbine that generates electricity.
- Nuclear Power (Nonrenewable): Uranium atoms split, releasing energy, heating water that creates steam. This steam turns a turbine that generates electricity.
What problems can we expect in the future regarding mineral supply and cost of mining?
What is the mineral supply will diminish and will be harder to extract, which will lead to increased mining costs?
Name the 4 compositions of igneous rocks, AND list the 4 textures igneous rocks can have.
What is...
- Compositions: Felsic, Mafic, Ultramafic, and Intermediate
- Textures: Fine-grained, Coarse-grained, Glassy, and Porphyritic
Name the 5 types of water erosion.
What is Sheet, Rill, Ephemeral, Gully, and Streambank?
Give an example of an environmental event that could be considered periodic.
What is...
- The daily movement of tides
- The changing of the seasons
- Plant flowering
- Bird migration
- Animal hibernation
- Insect emergence
- Hurricane seasons
If all fossil fuels were formed from decomposing plants and animals, why are there several different types of fossil fuels?
What is the type of organic matter, temperature, time, and pressure during decomposition can vary, which creates different types of fossil fuels?
What are the benefits and drawbacks to surface and subsurface mining?
What is...
- Surface mining is safer and less expensive but has large impacts on the environment because it drastically alters the landscape.
- Subsurface mining has less impacts on the surface landscape, but it is more expensive, less safe, and can still cause acid mine drainage.
What is uniformitarianism? When looking at a striated rock, are newer layers on the top or bottom?
What is...
- Uniformitarianism is the principle that states today's landforms were created over a very long time by the same slow, gradual processes that we see at work today.
- Newer layers are deposited at the top.
Name and describe 4 types of farming methods that can be used to conserve soil.
What is...
- Conservation Tillage: Disturb soil and plant cover as little as possible.
- Crop Rotation: Planting different crops in one field each year
- Contour Plowing: Planting fields along curves of a slope
- Conservation Buffers: Waterways and riparian buffers promote biodiversity.
- Windbreaks: Rows of trees or shrubs prevent wind erosion.
- Terracing: Stair step planting to prevent water runoff
- Wetlands: Catch and hold water to slow soil erosion.