Sedimentary Rocks & Crystals
How are the different sedimentary rocks categorized? How does sorting and rounding happen in a sedimentary rock?
By grain size. Deposition rate along flowing water; more movement means more erosion means smoother sides.
What are the differences and similarities of magma and lava? In which do find each: vent or magma chamber?
What is a metamorphic rock's protolith? What is the protolith of marble?
What is malachite and how is it related to ancient humans?
Copper ore that ancient humans coveted due to its appearance but then discovered to extract copper from it.
heat water and add solute until saturation. Let the solution cool to reach super saturation. Grow and choose seed crystal. clean and hang (on a thin wire) the seed crystal. Routinely clean and change the crystal to a new super saturated solution.
What determines the size of a caldera?
The bigger the boom, the bigger the hole. The bigger the magma chamber, the bigger the collapse.
What are the signs that a rock has been metamorphosed?
Foliation, curved layers, mineral composition change.
What evidence do we get from fossil records in support of continental drift?
Land animal fossils align in coasts that align across the ocean where no land bridge exists.
How are geodes made? What is permineralization and how is it related?
Mineral rich water infiltrates rock cavities. Minerals filling cavities in organic debris, slowly converting them to rock. Both involve intrusion of mineral rich water and crystal growth.
How are volcanic eruptions and earthquakes related?
Magma moving underground (including crater collapse). Tectonic plates causing both earthquakes and eruptions.
What are the four main kinds of metamorphism? How is slate made (and from what)?
Contact, burial, impact, regional. Burial metamorphism of shale.
What methods and/or technology allowed us to create the tools from the four main ages: stone, copper, bronze, and iron?
stone - chipping, grinding, smoothing away (string and wood treatments). Copper - malachite, charcoal, blow pipes. bronze - trade. Iron - bloomeries and bellows.
How is a sedimentary rock made? What is diagensis?
Sediment accumulates, compacts, and cements (with mineral crystals). The process of sediment becoming sedimentary rocks.
What is the difference between shield volcanoes and stratovolcanoes and what does that have to do with lava types? What does this have to do with the elements in the Earth's crust vs core?
Gentle vs steep slopes. Mafic/non-viscous vs felsic/viscous. The crust contains lighter elements (silicates) that floated up while the core contains heavier elements (iron/nickel).
A model that describes how the different rocks convert into one another. Erosion, Earth's internal heat, tectonic activity.
How do mantle convection cells work?
If we had two unmarked white powdered substances, what are two ways we can use to try and tell what kind of substance they are? Why do these methods work?
Growing crystals and by testing saturation solubility. Because crystals grow in different shapes and minerals have different saturation at different temperature.
What were the common ancient views regarding combustion and the fundamental elements? What are inflammable air and dephlogisticated air and how are they related to water?
All burning substances contained "phlogiston" that allowed things to burn. Hydrogen and oxygen which combined to make water.
How could we demonstrate experimentally where marble comes from? How about observationally?
Heat limestone to high temps/pressures (e.g., in a cannon). Observe marble around igneous intrusions in limestone.
What is the best evidence for mantle convection cells causing tectonic plates to move? Explain it.
Magnetic conveyor belt. Magma coming up from divergent plates whose magnetic poles aligns with the Earth's magnetic North at the time it is hot.
How are dunes and ripples made? What are their differences?
Flow in one direction vs back and forward. Asymmetrical vs symmetrical shape.
How are cinder cones made?
Mafic and gassy lava create a steep volcano as the lava cools quickly enough to form a "sandcastle" effect.
limestone generated from diagenesis of aquatic life remnants. A mafic igneous intrusion creating gabbro and separately marble through contact metamorphism with limestone. Uplift and erosion.
Why do we have oceanic and continental crust in the same tectonic plate with different thicknesses?
Granite in continental crust is more buoyant in the mantle than basalt in oceanic crust.