Physical Geology - Answer Sheet - Test 2 : T/Th Section


QuestionAnswerComments
# 1Bat 1 atm the boundary curve slopes up and to the right - a positive slope
# 2Bthe slope of the boundary between water and ice is negative....as pressure increases, ice melts at a lower temperature
# 3AIf the boundary is vertical then increasing pressure does not favor either water or ice.
# 4Anote that at y atm water boils at a temperature greater than 100
# 5Dmechanical weathering breaks up large particles and produces smaller particles with a greater total surface area
# 6Cof all of the common minerals quartz is the least likely to change chemically
# 7Csand is a size term only - 1/16 to 2 mm in diameter
# 8Cfeldspars are the most abundant mineral group in the continental crust and feldspars break down to form clays.... clays are the most abundant minerals in shales and mudstones
# 9Bsee answer to question 8
# 10Abasalt and granite are rocks - not minerals
# 11Da well sorted sediment consists of similar sized particles
# 12Bin shales the cleavages of the clays are lined up parallel to each other ... giving the rock its tendency to split into thin layers
# 13Aclastic means broken and clastic rocks contain particles that were broken away from the source and transported down slope tothe sink
# 14Cgiven time, feldspars and rock fragments will break down...arkoses and litharenites are enriched in these two components
# 15Din general, the particles in a breccia have not been subjected to much transport - hence their angular shape
# 16Cwith time, particles become rounded and spherical .... next time, look closely at the sand sized material that is accumulating at Galveston Beach
# 17Bcompaction results when material is compressed.....recrystallization and cementation involve chemical mechanisms
# 18Dany rock can be the parent of a metamorphic rock -- including a metamorphic rock
# 19Ctemperatures increase as depth within the Earth increases ..... material that is deeply buried will be subjected to an increasing temperature and pressure
# 20Awhen an intrusive or extrusive event occurs the igneous body begins to cool thus heat flows from the igneous body into the body it is in contact with
# 21Aslate to phyllite to schist involves the increase in size of the clay minerals ... this occurs with increasing degree of regional metamorphis,
# 22Cquartz is very resistant to change and a quartz-rich sandstone is not likely to exhibit much change during regional metamorphism
# 23Bshales and mudstones are the most likely parents of slates
# 24Cin one half life half the number of parent atoms decay to daughter atoms .... one half life leaves 10,000 of A, two leave 5,000, and three leave 2,500....each half-life is 100,000 years
# 25Bearly in the history of the Earth the amount of radioactive isotopes was greater than today ... hence more heat was generated in the past than today .....
# 26Athe Precambrian encompases time from about 4.5 billion years ago to about 560 million years ago - nearly 4 billion years
# 27Bthe Jurassic is in the Mesozoic era
# 28Cremember Jurassic Park
# 29Cthe Devonian period came long before the Permian period....if the section is right side up then unit D must be younger than unit E .... all of the other periods are younger than the Permina
# 30Cthe sequence is fining upwards - this is a characteristic feature of transgressive sequences that form when sea level is rising or the land is subsiding
# 31Cwe know that G intruded into unit F but we have no idea when since the only unit that G intrudeded is F .... G could be the youngest unit or it could be older than everything but F
# 32Bthe older units were tilted and eroded before units B and A were laid down horizontally ....there is an angular relationship between the younger and older units
# 33Dgravity is a measure of the force between a body and the center of the Earth....gravity tends to pull things down - hence Newton and the apple
# 34Dplate boundaries are places where "things happen" .... energy is released, earthquakes occur, volcanoes form and erupt.....
# 35Cthe deposits nearest the river bank tend to be coarses and these deposits thicken with time .... levees tend to keep the river within its banks and are a natural process that attempts to reduce flooding
# 36Adeltas form when a river deposits material in a body of water ...
# 37Dwhen water is poured on the beach sands some of it enters the open spaces present between the nearly spherical quartz grains
# 38Aif the pore spaces are not interconnected then the rock is impermeable
# 39Cthe width, depth, discharge and velocity tend to increase down stream .... the gradient, profile, however, tends to flatten out downstream
# 40Athe water table separates the zone with some air in the pore spaces from the zone with all water in the pore spaces
# 41Cgroundwater is only about 1% of the Earth's water supply but it excees the water stored in the atmosphere, biosphere and in lakes and rivers
# 42Bthe water table is not a flat surface .... it is high under hills and low under valleys
# 43C water closest to the well stem is pumped first....if the rate of pumping increases, water closest to the stem is depleated first....it takes longer from water further away to reach the well
# 44Adebris pushed by the front or nose of a glacier may remain when the glacier retreats ....
# 45Cif the Earth were a cube then the "spread" of energy would be the same independent of latitude .... the Earth is a sphere
# 46Cas the glacier begins to form and move it erodes the area in which it forms .... these bowls make great ski basins
# 47Ca 300 foot lowering sea level would put the Galveston beaches many miles offshore
# 48Bif the surface is highly reflective then more of the energy from the Sun will be reflected away from the Earth and not available for heating
# 49Dall of these statements about greenhouse gasses are true
# 50Athe Sun rises in the east ... when the sun rises in Houston it has not come up in California
A copy of the distribution of scores follows.

The average grade was a 62 (62%). The same as the first exam:

Use the following scale to see how you are doing on just this first exam.

84 to 100 -- Very Good
70 to 83 - Good
58 to 69 - OK
50 to 57 - Not So Good