Geology Exam 4 Review

Question 1

The selective absorption and reheating of Earth, resulting in warming of the atmosphere.

Answer 1

Greenhouse effect

Question 2

These lifeforms replaced the reptiles as the dominant land animals in the Cenozoic era.

Answer 2

Mammals

Question 3

A storehouse of climate data, where abundance and types of organic remains are indicative of past sea-surface temperatures.

Answer 3

Seafloor sediments

Question 4

What is climate?

Answer 4

Average weather

Question 5

Why are seafloor sediments very important in discovering paleoclimate?

Answer 5

Contain remains of organisms that vary with climate change

Question 6

An uplifted wave-cut platform.

Answer 6

Marine terrace

Question 7

Where do most dry lands lie in regards to the north and south of the equator?

Answer 7

20 and 30 degrees

Question 8

_____ and helium were the first materials to condense into small particles when the solar system began forming.

Answer 8

Hydrogen

Question 9

What is an erosional contact between tilted, older strata below and horizontal, younger strata above?

Answer 9

Angular unconformity

Question 10

How is the wetness or dryness of a region measured?

Answer 10

Difference between precipitation & evaporation

Question 11

Where are rainshadow deserts common?

Answer 11

Dry valleys of California and Nevada

Question 12

What does the height, length, and period of a wave depend on?

Answer 12

All of these: fetch, length of wind blowing, wind speed

Question 13

Represents the greatest expanse of geological time.

Answer 13

Precambrian

Question 14

Arroyo, wadi, donga and nullah are all names for these type of short lived streams.

Answer 14

Ephemeral streams

Question 15

Era in which reptiles dominated the land, sea, and sky.

Answer 15

Mesozoic era

Question 16

What dominates modern climate change?

Answer 16

Human influences that exceed natural bounds

Question 17

Extensive blankets of silt once carried in suspension.

Answer 17

Loess

Question 18

A combination of three oxygen atoms in one molecule.

Answer 18

Ozone

Question 19

Which dates can be determined by applying the law of superposition?

Answer 19

Relative Dates

Question 20

The greatest storms on the Earth.

Answer 20

Hurricanes

Question 21

Large landmasses that consist of all, or nearly all, existing continents.

Answer 21

Supercontinents

Question 22

A dry, flat lake bed left after the water evaporated.

Answer 22

Playa

Question 23

Tiny solid and liquid particles found in the air.

Answer 23

Aerosols

Question 24

A buried surface of erosion separating younger strata above from older strata below.

Answer 24

Unconformity

Question 25

An accumulation of sediment composed of locally abundant material, found along the landward margin of an ocean or lake.

Answer 25

Beach

Question 26

Side of the mountain in which air rises, clouds form, and release most of the precipitation.

Answer 26

Windward

Question 27

Principle applied to the undeformed sequence of sedimentary rocks, each bed is older than the one above and younger than the one below.

Answer 27

Principle of superposition

Question 28

The spontaneous decay in the structure of an atom’s nucleus.

Answer 28

Radioactivity

Question 29

Stones that are shaped and polished from sandblasting.

Answer 29

Ventifacts

Question 30

Which are properties of the zigzag movement of sand grains along a beach?

Answer 30

All of the above, caused by obliquely breaking waves, it causes beach drift

Question 31

Which of the following best describes the climatic factors that cause low latitude deserts like the Sahara in Africa?

Answer 31

Cool, dry air is descending, surface winds are blowing toward equator.

Question 32

Traces or remains of prehistoric life preserved in rock.

Answer 32

Fossil

Question 33

Tilted strata lie below the unconformity, and bedding in younger strata above is parallel to the unconformity.

Answer 33

Angular unconformity

Question 34

Chemicals that are commercially produced and have been found to deplete the ozone.

Answer 34

Chlorofluorocarbons

Question 35

Clean, dry air is composed almost entirely of ________?

Answer 35

Nitrogen and Oxygen

Question 36

What is the age of the Earth?

Answer 36

4.5 billion years

Question 37

The line that marks the contact between land and sea.

Answer 37

Shorelines

Question 38

Changes that reinforce the initial change.

Answer 38

Positive feedback

Question 39

The name of the process when waves reach shallow water, they are often bent and tend to become parallel to the shore.

Answer 39

Refraction

Question 40

It means “sun in the making.”

Answer 40

Protosun

Question 41

What are properties of the movement of sand parallel to the shore?

Answer 41

All of the above; may create spits, is achieved by longshore currents, is created by waves approaching at oblique angle