STUDY GUIDE FOR EXAM 1:

I. History of the National Park Service (tape 1): know the major milestones and why they are important .

II. Tectonics :

• What are the internal and external heat machines and how do they drive the landscape?

• Know the difference between continental drift, sea-floor spreading, and plate tectonics.

• What is paleomagnetism, how is it measured, and why is it important?

• Plate Boundaries: Characteristics of divergent, convergent, and transform plate boundaries (with modern and ancient examples)

• Wilson Cycle: what is it; how do we recognize it in the rock record; examples?

• Exotic terraines: what are they; how do we recognize them; how do we know when they were accreted; examples?

III. Fluvial Geomorphology:

• Bedrock rivers verses alluvial rivers

• Drainage patterns: dendritic; parallel; trellis; radial; annular (what do they look like and what is their significance)

• Define and recognize on a topographic map major landforms associated with meandering rivers (e.g. point bars, abandoned river courses, ox-bow lakes, meander scrolls)

IV. Glacial Geomorphology:

• Define and recognize diffferent types of glaciers

• Define and recognize on a topographic map major glacial landforms, both erosional (e.g. cirques, cols, tarns, arêtes, U-shaped valleys, hanging valleys, horns, fjords) and depositional ( terminal, lateral, medial, and recessional moraines; drumlins; eskers; ground moraine)

V. Others

Characteristics of topographic maps: e.g. scale, contour interval, contour lines

Also be able to recognize the following on a topographic map and explain their origin:

• Volcanic landforms: shield volcanoes, composite volcanoes, cinder cones, lava domes, lava flows (what do they look like and how do they differ in terms of origin, composition, etc)

• Structural landforms: dipping beds (cuestas), anticlines & synclines (plunging and horizontal)

Know the names and approximate ages of the major eons and eras of the geologic time scale, as well as major biological events associated with each (e.g. Age of Reptiles, Age of Mammals, etc.).

Locate approximately the major physiographic provinces on either an outline or physiographic map of the U.S.