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Geology 110 Preparation Questions

I will handout in class and list on the course web page a few questions for each lecture. These will serve as preparation for each class and be drawn from lectures and links. Please come to class with written answers to these questions, I may collect these on occasion as a quiz.

Return to Geology 110 main page

For 14 January (Wednesday)

 1 - What is the scientific method and how does it operate? (see the text and explore web sites)

2 - What do you think is the most pressing environmental problem facing us today?

For 16 January (Friday)

1 - What is the Faint young Sun paradox?

2 - What is the age of the Earth and how do we know?

3 - What is the GAIA hypothesis?

4 - What is the approximate age of the earliest life on Earth?

For 19 January (Monday)
1 ­ Learn the geologic timescale for Monday's quiz. I want you to know the names of the Eras and Periods in order, the times in millions of years between the Eras, and the names of the Epochs of the Quaternary (Pleistocene and Holocene) and the timing of these Epochs.

2 ­ Take a good look at page 98 of your text. What is a half life? What is radioactivity and how can it be used to determine absolute time

3 ­ We will focus in on radiocarbon dating (C-14 dating). What is the half life of C-14. What does the 14 refer to?

4 ­ What is the difference between absolute and relative geologic time?

For 21 January (Wednesday)
1 ­ If a piece of wood was found in the northern suburbs of Cincinnati and it had 1/8 of its original C-14 ­ how old it it?

2 ­ What is the greenhouse effect and which gases are greenhouse gases?

3 ­ What is the Snowball Earth Hypothesis. What is the evidence that it occurred? When is it purported to have occurred?

4 ­ When was the Cretaceous and what is interesting about this time period?

For 23 January 2004 (Friday) - No prep. questions for Friday Exercise 1 due.

For 26 January 2004 (Monday)

1 ­ List the three plate margins ­ what are they and what are their characterstics? Where on Earth would you go to find each margin?

2 ­ What is the rock cycle and how is it related to the tectonic cycle?

3 ­ How may have the tectonic and carbon cycles been changed during the hothouse time of the Cretaceous Period?

For 28 January 2004 (Wednesday)

We will start off with a quiz in class and then carry on with how the Earth has stored natural resources.

Read the ODNR - GEOFACTS NO.11 (http://www.ohiodnr.com/geosurvey/pdf/geof11.pdf)

1 - Of the three rock types, which type dominates in the formation of Ohio's natural resources?

2 - What are some of the uses for limestone? for gypsum?

3 - What was the origin of Ohio's rich salt deposits.

Below is the Hypsometric Curve for the Earth's surface. On which types of plate boundaries are the highest and lowest portions of the Earth found? What is hypsometric?

For 30 January (Friday)

1 ­ Begin reading Hubbert's Peak (Page 1-70) ­ outline the geologic origin of oil.

2 - Who is the author ­ what is his background.

3 - Look for web sites that comment on the book ­ see who agrees or disagrees with Deffeyes.

For 2 February (Monday)

1 - Read GEOFACTS 16 from the ODNR. http://www.ohiodnr.com/geosurvey/pdf/geof16.pdf

2 - What is the federal clean air act?

3 - What are the primary environmental concerns over burning coal?

4 - How is our campus heated?

For 4 February (Wednesday)

1 - Write out the photosynthesis and the combustion reactions, comment on how these reaction fit into the natural carbon cycle.

2 - How do petroleum traps form (look in Deffeyes and your text)?. What are the geologic processes responsible for folding and faulting of the Earth's crust?

3 - Come up with two questions on the first 6 chapters of Deffeyes.

4 - What is the significance of the diagram below.

 For 6 February (Friday) finish Deffeyes

1 - What is a bell-shaped curve and what is its significance in terms of resource production of either coal or oil?

2 - If the bell-shaped curve model is correct, then how can it be used to predict oil supplies?

Go to the web for these questions

1 - What is the difference between weathering and erosion?

2 - How do chemical and physical weathering interact? Give an example.What kind of feedback is this (positive or negative)?

For 18 February (Wednesday)

These questions refer to the PDF reading on Human Alteration of the Nitrogen Cycle. (can be found at http://www.esa.org/sbi/sbi_issues/)

1- List the reservoirs and explain the fluxes of the nitrogen cycle.

2 - Why do we (and all life) need Nitrogen?

3 - What are the primary components of Human-Driven Nitrogen fixation.

4 - What is nitrogen fixation?

For 25 February(Wednesday) - Mass movements is the topic.

1 - What is the angle of repose? see the web

2 - What relationship does angle of repose have with grain size?

3 - Read the pamphlet put out by the ODNR (http://www.dnr.state.oh.us/geosurvey/geo_fact/geo_f08.htm) what parts of Ohio are most susceptible to mass movements and why?

For 27 February (Friday) -Go to Ohio's Hydrologic Cycle either through the course web page, preparation questions or at http://www.ag.ohio-state.edu/~ohioline/aex-fact/0461.html and answer the following:

1 - Under the subtitle Adding it up - how is the average 38 inches of precipitation allocated among the various pathways water takes through the hydrologic cycle?

2 - Under what conditions does runoff occur?

3 - What is a drainage basin?

4 - What energy source drives the hydrologic cycle?

For 1 March - Monday (Read the publication Ohio Stream Management Guide)

http://www.dnr.state.oh.us/water/pubs/fs_st/stfs03.pdf

1 - What is a stream hydrograph and how does it change with urbanization?

2 - Outline the different channel types and patterns. What controls the variety of streams that we see in Ohio?

For 3 March- Flood Video - We will view the Floods in the Midwest video on Wednesday -

Answer the following before or during class and hand this in at the end of class Wednesday.

1 - What was the cause of the great 1993 Midwest floods?

2 - What lessons were learned from the floods and how did some communities react to the devastation?

3 - What is a 100-year flood? a 100-year floodplain?

For 24 March (Wednesday)

1 - Below is a conceptual diagram of the idea of serial engineering and the development of flodplains. Write a paragraph explaining the diagram.

2 - What is FEMA (look at the web)?

3 - What is capacity and competence of a stream? and why are high capacity rivers susceptible to flooding?

For 31 March 2004 – Lonnie Thompson – Lean Lecture Hall at 8:00 PM. He is the Osgood Speaker this year.
In preparation for his talk and later in the semester go to the website below and take a slide tour of the slideset entitled Low Latitude Ice Core.
http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/paleo/slides/slideset/index20.htm

Write a paragraph outlining the types of information that can be obtained from ice core proxy records.

 

For Friday April 2004 – The Atmosphere

You will need to go to your text. Read Chapter 4.
1 – What drives atmospheric circulation?

2 – What is a Hadley cell?

3 – Below is diagram 4-2 from your text. Explain why there is an inequality of solar radiation with latitude? How does this diagram relate to the NRG balance discussed in the early weeks of the class?

For Monday 12 April 2004 – The Atmosphere and Ozone
You will need to go to your text. Read Chapter 4.
1 – Why do we have seasons?
2 – Go to Chapter 3 in your text and write out a few sentences that speak to the role of clouds in the Earth NRG budget.
3 – We will start discussion of Ozone on Monday so begin reading Chapter 17. Outline the differences between UVA-UVB and UVC, which of these do we need to worry about and why?

For Wednesday 14 April 2004 – ENSO
You will need to go to your text and the web for these.
1 – What is ENSO and how does it operate?
Look at the diagram below, which shows the La Nina and El Nino – be able to explain this…..