Exam 4

Question 1

What are glaciers?

Answer 1

A mass of perennial ice, aka a “slow moving river of ice”

Question 2

What type of glacier is an ice cap?

Answer 2

Continental glacier

Question 3

Describe glacial mass balance

Answer 3

A positive net balance or negative net balance occurs during colder or warmer conditions respectively

Question 4

How is glacial ice formed?

Answer 4

By the continual accumulation of snow that recrystallizes under its own weight

Question 5

What does glacial erosion involve?

Answer 5

Abrasion

Question 6

What are examples of a continental glacier?

Answer 6

Ice sheets, ice caps, and ice fields

Question 7

When did the Pleistocene ice age epoch occur?

Answer 7

Began about 2.5 million years ago

Question 8

What do geomorphic landforms produced by alpine glaciers include?

Answer 8

Horns and cols

Question 9

What is a snowline?

Answer 9

The lowest elevation where winter snow remains year round

Question 10

How much of Earth’s freshwater is frozen?

Answer 10

77%

Question 11

What are glaciers broadly classified into?

Answer 11

Alpine and continental glaciers

Question 12

How are ice structures arranged from largest to smallest?

Answer 12

Ice sheet, ice cap, ice field

Question 13

What does the process of calving produce?

Answer 13

Icebergs

Question 14

Where does the greatest rate of flow in a glacier occur?

Answer 14

Internally, below the rigid surface layer

Question 15

What is a feature of alpine erosion?

Answer 15

Cirque

Question 16

How are stream-cut valleys and glacial cut valleys shaped?

Answer 16

Stream-cut valleys are V-shaped and glacial cut valleys are U-shaped

Question 17

What is a drumlin?

Answer 17

Deposited till that was streamlined in the direction of continental ice movement

Question 18

What is permafrost?

Answer 18

When soil or rock temps remain below freezing for at least two years (covers 20% of earth’s land surface)

Question 19

What is the arctic region based on?

Answer 19

The 10°C (50°F) July isotherm

Question 20

What is soil?

Answer 20

A dynamic body of mineral and organic matter as well as air and water

Question 21

What is a pedon?

Answer 21

The smallest unit of soil that has all the units used for classification

Question 22

What do the physical and chemical weathering processes of the upper lithosphere produce?

Answer 22

Materials from which soils could develop

Question 23

How many years does it take to generate a few centimeters of topsoil or prime farmland soil?

Answer 23

500 years

Question 24

What is structure?

Answer 24

Its used to describe the size and shape of the aggregates of particles in soil

Question 25

How do you describe a soil's structure?

Answer 25

Sand, silt, and clay

Question 26

What is the relationship between needleleaf trees and soil acidity?

Answer 26

Needleleaf trees increase soil acidity

Question 27

Describe soil erosion

Answer 27

Because of poor farming practices, 35% of farmlands are experiencing rapid erosion

Question 28

What is ecology?

Answer 28

A study of the relationships between organisms and their environment

Question 29

What is biogeography?

Answer 29

A study of the spatial distribution of plants and animals

Question 30

What is a niche?

Answer 30

Unique role of a life-form within a given habitat

Question 31

What is a biomass?

Answer 31

The total weight of the organic matter (living and recently living) in an ecosystem

Question 32

Where does primary succession occur?

Answer 32

An area with bare rock or a disturbed site with no vestige of its former community

Question 33

What are the main abiotic components?

Answer 33

Solar energy and the environmental factors of the lithosphere, atmosphere, and hydrosphere

Question 34

Describe the nitrogen cycle

Answer 34

Nitrogen-fixing bacteria take nitrogen from the atmosphere and make it available to living organisms

Question 35

What is biodiversity conservation loosely based on?

Answer 35

The principles of island biogeography

Question 36

The pines of the southeastern United States are characteristic of which biome?

Answer 36

Midlatitude broadleaf and mixed forest

Question 37

What is a biome?

Answer 37

A large, stable terrestrial ecosystem or aquatic ecosystem

Question 38

What is the theory of biogeography?

Answer 38

The number of species increases with island area

Question 39

The tropical seasonal forest and scrub biome is found in which climate?

Answer 39

Monsoon and savanna

Question 40

What is an ecotone?

Answer 40

Transitional boundary zones between adjoining ecosystems or biomes

Question 41

Describe the tropical savanna biome

Answer 41

Its often at the margins of tropical rain forests and the semiarid tropical steppes and deserts

Question 42

Which biome is most modified by human activity?

Answer 42

Midlatitude grasslands

Question 43

Which biome has dry summers and wet winters?

Answer 43

Mediterranean shrubland

Question 44

What are cirques?

Answer 44

A bowl-shaped erosional landform scooped out at the head of a valley

Question 45

What are crevasses?

Answer 45

Vertical cracks formed in glaciers

Question 46

What is the equilibrium line?

Answer 46

The dividing line between the accumulation zone (above) and the ablation zone (below)

Question 47

Describe glacial drift

Answer 47

Glacial deposits that are split into two categories: unsorted till (varies in size and no order) and sorted outwash (stratified layers that have largest sediments on the bottom)

Question 48

What is a moraine?

Answer 48

Deposited unsorted till that produces a specific landform

Question 49

What is net primary productivity?

Answer 49

The net photosynthesis for an entire ecosystem

Question 50

What is photosynthesis?

Answer 50

The conversion of CO2, water, and light into carbs and oxygen

Question 51

What is respiration?

Answer 51

Plants breaking down carbs and oxygen and releasing CO2, water, and energy

Question 52

What is symbiosis?

Answer 52

A relationship where two species are associated in a way that may benefit at least one of them (mutualism, parasitism, commensalism)

Question 53

What is mutualism?

Answer 53

When each organism benefits from the relationship

Question 54

What is parasitism?

Answer 54

When one organism is harmed and one is benefited

Question 55

What is commensalism?

Answer 55

When one organism is benefited and the other is neither helped nor harmed

Question 56

Describe food web

Answer 56

Producers -> primary consumers -> secondary consumers -> tertiary consumers -> detritivores and decomposers

Question 57

What is humus?

Answer 57

Fully decomposed plant matter

Question 58

What are life zones?

Answer 58

The zonation of plants and animals at different elevations. Each life zone has different temperatures and precipitation

Question 59

What are limiting factors?

Answer 59

Physical, chemical, or biological factors that determine species distributions and population size

Question 60

What is a soil profile?

Answer 60

A vertical selection of soil from the surface to bedrock that scientists study

Question 61

What are aridisols?

Answer 61

Desert soil

Question 62

What are mollisols?

Answer 62

Grassland soils

Question 63

What are alfisols?

Answer 63

Moderately weathered forest soils

Question 64

What are oxisols?

Answer 64

Tropical soils

Question 65

What are ultisols?

Answer 65

Highly weathered forest soils

Question 66

What are spodosols?

Answer 66

Northern coniferous forest soils

Question 67

What are entisols?

Answer 67

Recent, undeveloped soils

Question 68

What are inceptisols?

Answer 68

Weakly developed soils

Question 69

What are gelisols?

Answer 69

Cold and frozen soils

Question 70

What are andisols?

Answer 70

Volcanic soils

Question 71

What are vertisols?

Answer 71

Soils high in clay

Question 72

What are histosols?

Answer 72

Organic soils

Question 73

What are the five pedogenic regimes?

Answer 73

Laterization, calcification, salinization, podzolization, and gleization