All things water and it's structures
Proxies in Paleo-climatology
All things dating (the geology kind)
Steno's Principles
James Hutton Concepts
100
Exhibits adhesion and cohesion, floats as a solid, acts as a universal solvent, and exists in all three states on Earth.
What are the four unique properties of water?
100
Proxies that change through causes of ice volume or tectonic activity, indicated global climate shifts, and show environmental changes through relic landforms.
What are rocks and sediments?
100
The time it takes for half of the parent isotopes in a sample to decay into daughter isotopes. This can be measured by the number of daughter isotopes present.
What is a half life?
100
Law that say that unless deformed, overturned, or otherwise disturbed, newer rocks will always lie atop older rocks (the sandwich method)
What is the Law of Superposition?
100
States that class in a rock are older than the rock itself (can't add cheese to the sandwich unless it was made first)
What is the principle of included fragments?
200
An area of land that drains into a common body of water.
What is a watershed?
200
A cylinder of ice drilled from a glacier or ice sheet, containing layers of snow and ice that have accumulated over thousands of years.
What is an ice core?
200
These are the best for isotopic dating because they crystallize from magma and crystals lock in atoms of radioactive elements
What are igneous rocks?
200
Principle that explains that layers of sediment are originally deposited horizontally under the action of gravity (you don't build a sandwich sideways).
What is the law of Original Horizontality?
200
A ______ separates parallel sedimentary layers with an erosional surface between them.
What is disconformity?
300
______ have steep gradients, narrow v-shape, high velocity, sediments in this are small and round.
_______ have many channels, low gradient, floodplain association, low velocity, sediments in this are jagged and large
_______ have one channel with lots of bends, low gradients, dynamic velocity
What are straight channels. braided streams, and meandering streams?
300
The study of growth patterns in the hard tissues of organisms like corals and shells to infer past environmental conditions.
What is sclerochronology?
300
Not directly possible to date these, but can happen through cross cutting and beds of igneous rocks and fossils. You do not want to go through the hassle to date this.
What is a sedimentary rock?
300
A principle stating that a geologic feature (like a fault or igneous intrusion) that cuts across other rock layers must be younger than the layers it cuts
What is cross-cutting?
300
An __________ separates tilted or folded rocks from overlying horizontal layers.
What is an angular unconformity?
400
________: A landform created at the mouth of a river where it enters a larger body of water, characterized by sediment deposition and branching channels.
________ : A fan-shaped deposit of sediment that forms when a stream emerges from a confined area onto a flat plain.
What are deltas and alluvial fans?
400
Tiny marine organisms with shells that coil in different directions depending on water temperature, used as a paleoclimate proxy.
- coil LEFT when the water is cooler than 8 to 10 degrees
- coil RIGHT when the water is warmer than 8 to 10 degrees
What are foraminifera?
400
The spontaneous transformation of one atomic nucleus into another, often releasing energy and particles. (HEAT!)
What is radioactive decay?
400
Law that suggests all rock layers initially extend laterally in all directions (layers of sandwich stay the same, even if cut in half)
What is the law of lateral continuity?
400
A _______ occurs when sedimentary rocks are deposited on eroded igneous or metamorphic rocks.
What is a nonconformity?
500
_____ measures how easily water can move through a material. It is higher in materials with large, interconnected pores, like gravel, and lower in materials with smaller, less connected pores, like clay.
What is Hydraulic Conductivity?
500
_____ uses tree rings to reconstruct past climates. Wider rings generally indicate favorable growth conditions (warmer and wetter), while narrower rings suggest harsher conditions.
What is dendroclimatology?
500
This formula is used to figure out the half-life of a substance that is decaying.
What is this equation:
500
This separates the age of reptiles and the age of mammals, which was recognized by geologists who realized that there was a dramatic change in the types of fossils deposited on either side of this boundary, this is related to the principle of Lateral Continuity.
What is the K-T boundary?
500
States that fossils succeed each other vertically in a specific, reliable order that can be identified over wide horizontal distances (if 2 cheeses are found in same package with symbol, they prob came from same farm)
What is the Principle of faunal succession?