GEOLOGY LECTURE 1 Flashcards
(211 cards)
1
Q
It is the study of earth
A
Geology
2
Q
It is concerned with the earth and the rocks of which it is composed, the processes by which they were formed during geological time, wnd the modelling of the earth’s surface in the past and at the present day.
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The science of geology
3
Q
This term is used for those materials of many kinds which form the greater part of the relatively thin outer shell, or crust of the earth.
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Rocks
4
Q
Rocks are made up of ________ units
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Small crystalline
5
Q
Rocks are made up of small crystalline units. What are these crystalline units called?
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Minerals
6
Q
In geology this is a hard material.
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Rocks
7
Q
In geology, these are either sediments which have not yet become rock-like or a granular residue from a rock that has completely weathered.
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Soil
8
Q
It is an interdisciplinary field which uses geoscience to solve engineering and environmental problems.
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Geology engineering
9
Q
It is a branch of geology concerned with the study of Strata and stratification.
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Stratigraphy
10
Q
What are the 2 sub-fields of stratigraphy.
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LithoStratigraphy and Biostratigraphy
11
Q
The visible layering of bedding on strata is due to?
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Physical Contrast in rock type
12
Q
These are the changes in environments of deposition.
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Facies
13
Q
This is a basic concept of stratigraphy that states: in an undeformed stratigraphic sequence, the oldest strata occur at the base of the sequence.
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Law of Superposition
14
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It is the classification of bodies of rock based on the observable lithologic properties of the strata and their relative stratigraphic positions.
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Lithostratigraphy
15
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This studies the changes in the relative proportions of trace elements and isotopes within and between lithologic unit.
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Chemostratigraphy
16
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This type of LithoStratigraphy documents the often cyclic changes in the relative proportions of minerals, grain size, thickness of sediment layers(varves) and fossil diversity with time.
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Cyclostratigraphy
17
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This is the study of strata based on fossil evidence in the rock layers.
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Biostratigraphy/Paleontologic stratigraphy
18
Q
What was biologic stratigraphy based on?
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William smith’s Principle of faunal succession
19
Q
This is a branch of geology concerned with establishing the absolute ages of strata.
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Chronostatigtaphy
20
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This curve attempts to define a global historical sea-level curve according to inferences from worldwide stratigraphy patterns.
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Vail curve
21
Q
What are the 3 rock types?
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Igneous, Sedimentary, and Metamorphic rocks.
22
Q
This is the process that transforms and moves rocks.
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Rock-Cycle
23
Q
How many minerals have been identified?
A
3500
24
Q
What are the two types of igneous rocks?
A
Intrusive and extrusive igneous rocks
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What type of igneous rocks are plutons made out of?
Intrusive igneous rocks
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What are the largest types of plutons called?
Batholiths
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Cooling speed of igneous rocks with large mineral crystals.
Slow
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What kind of igneous rocks are formed from lavas in volcanoes?
Extrusive igneous rocks
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The word igneous is from latin that means fire-formed.
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What is the most common type of igneous rock?
Basalt
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What is the type of igneous rocks formed from magma?
Intrusive igneous rocks
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What are rocks from deep magma called?
Plutonic
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What are the two best known igneous rocks?
Basalt, and Granite
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What are rocks that are rich in Magnesium and Iron called?
Mafic rock
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These rocks are rich in Feldspar and Quarts.
Felsic rocks
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This is the cementing, compacting, and hardening of sediments to form sedimentary rocks.
Lithification
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It is a zone in rocks where movement occurred
Faults
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A fault caused by pulling strength and downward slip
Normal faults
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One block is pushed over the other due to compression.
Reverse fault
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Horizontal movement occurs. Because of the high friction of fault places, movement occurs not gradually, but in short events, here are earthquakes occur
Strike-slip fault
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This is formed in relief of stress which has accumulated in rocks.
Fractures
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These are fractures on which relative displacement of the two sides of the break has taken place.
Fault
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These are fractures where no displacement has occurred.
Joint
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This is a fold downwards
Syncline
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This is a fold upwards
Anticline
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If the movements continue after folding a fold can break, and becomes a ________.
Thrust
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An arched fold in which the two limbs dip away from one another is called __________
Antiform
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This is antiform but the rocks that form the core are older than the outer strata.
Anticline
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A fold in which the limbs dip towards one another is a _________
Synform
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This is a synform but the strata forming the core of the fold is younger than those below them
Syncline
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A Strata that has behaved as a brittle material.
Competent
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A strata which flowed as ductile material.
Incompetent
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This term is used for structures produced by materials such as rock salt or mobile granite which have moved upwards and pierced through the overlying strata.
Diapir
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This is a group of parallel joints.
Joint sets
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Two or more joint sets that intersect
Joint system
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Developed from the drying and freezing, resultant shrinkage of sedimentary deposits.
Shrinkage-joints
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Joint parallels the axis of the fold and are concentrated in the fold hinge where tension is at greatest.
Tension joints
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Joints that cross many bedding planes are called ________
Master joints
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This is the general term for the Land areas continually being reduced and their shapes modified by weathering and erosion.
DENUDATION
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This is the breakdown of minerals into new compounds by the action of chemical agents, although they act slowly, produce noticeable effects especially in soluble rocks.
Decomposition or chemical weathering
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The break down of rocks into smaller particles by the action of temperature, by impact from raindrops and by abrasion from mineral particles carried by the wind.
DISINTEGRATION OR MECHANICAL WEATHERING
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Decomposition and Disintegration of the ground that are directly associated with the activities of animals and plants.
Biological Weathering
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What are the agents of erosion?
Rivers, wind, moving ice, and water waves.
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This is the term for the weathered material.
Detritus
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The removal of material.
Erosion
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This is the scientific study of earth surface processes, including erosion, deposition and formation of landforms and sediments.
Geomorphology
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The breaking down and changing of rocks as a result of exposure to the environment
Weathering
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In what climate chemical reactions are most intense?
When the climate is most wet and hot
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The altering of rocks as a result of exposure to different substances.
Decomposition
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Processes commonly involved with Decomposition
SOLUTION, OXIDATION, REDUCTION, HYDRATION, HYDROLYSIS, LEACHING, AND CATION EXCHANGE,
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This layer of rock ranges in depth from only a few centimeters to a meter or more. It has a mixture of inorganic particles and vegetable humus and high porosity.
Top-soil
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In this layer is a mixture of soil with rock fragments, with decreasing organic content, and then into weathered rock and finally unweathered rock
Sub-soil
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What are the terms for layers of soil in Pedology?
A-horizon, B-Horizon, C-Horizon
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What is the C-Horizon?
Rock at depth
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What is the A-Horizon?
Soil
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B-Horizon
Sub-soil
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The terms A-horizon, B-horizon, C-horizon are used in?
Pedology
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A vertical column showing the sequence of soil layers.
Soil-profile
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Dissociation of minerals into ions, greatly aided by the presence of CO2 in the soil-profile, which forms carbonic acid (H2CO3) with percolating rainwater
Solution
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The combination of oxygen with a mineral to form oxides and hydroxides or any other reaction in which the oxidation number of the oxidized elements is increased
Oxidation
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The release of oxygen from a mineral to its surrounding environment: ions leave the mineral structure as the oxidation number of the reduced elements is decreased
Reduction
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Absorption of water molecules into the mineral structure. This normally results in expansion, some clays expand as much as 60%, and by admitting water hasten the processes of solution, oxidation, reduction and hydrolysis.
Hydration
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Hydrogen ions in percolating water replace mineral cations: no oxidation-reduction occurs.
Hydrolysis
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The migration of ions produced by the above processes. The mobility of ions depends upon their ionic potentials.
Leaching
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Absoption onto the surface of negatively charged clay of positively charged cations in solution, especially Calcium, hydrogen, Potassium, and Magnesium.
Cation Exchange
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In limestone the process of Decomposition is dependent on?
Feeble acids such as CO2 and SO2
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These are Ground surface that show depression that may continue downwards as irregular channels.
Pipes
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Vertical joints that are widened by solution.
Grikes
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Continued solution to grikes that may lead to the formation of _________.
Swallow Hallows
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Rough Shafts which communicate with solution passages at lower levels along which water flows underground.
Shallow holes
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Where are swallow holes often situated?
At the intersection point of the vertical joints.
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What causes Disintegration?
The effects of changing temperature on rocks.
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This occurs when water continually seeps into cracks, freezes and expands, eventually breaking the rock apart.
Freeze-thaw
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Types of Disintegration
Frost action, Exfoliation, abrasion, and Root wedging
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The freezing/thawing of ice cracks rocks
Frost action
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Grinding of rock against rock
Abrasion
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Plant roots growing into rocks
Root Wedging
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Altering hot/cold cracks rocks
Exfoliation
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Processes of Disintegration
Mechanical unloading, Mechanical loading, thermal loading, wetting and drying, crystallization, Pneumatic loading.
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Vertical expansion due to the reduction of vertical load by erosion. This will open existing fractures and may permit the creation of new fractures.
Mechanical unloading
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Impacts on rock, and abrasion, by sand and silt size wind-borne particles in deserts. Impact on soil and weak rocks by rain drops during intense rainfall storms.
Mechanical loading
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Expansion by the freezing of water in pores and fractures in cold regions, or by the heating of rocks in hot regions. Contractions by the rolling of rocks and soils in cold regions
Thermal loading
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Expansion and contractions associated with the repeated absorption and loss of water molecules from mineral surfaces and strictures
Wetting and Dryinf
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Expansion of pores and fissures by _________ within them of minerals that were originally in solution. Expansion is only severe when ___________ occurs within a confined space
Crystallization
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The repeated loading by waves of air trapped at the head of fractures exposed in the wave zone of a sea cliff.
Pneumatic loading
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These living organisms grow on essentially bare rock surfaces and create a more humid chemical microenvironment.
Lichens and Mosses
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The physical interaction of flowing water and the natural channels of rivers and streams. This includes the motion of sediments and erosion or deposition on river beds
Fluvial Process
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What bodies of water are Fluvial processes associated.
Rivers and streams and landforms and deposits created by them.
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The physical interaction of Stream or rivers that are associated with glaciers, ice sheets, or ice caps.
Glaciofluvial or Fluvioglacial
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How many ways can erosion of moving water happen?
2
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Sediments in rivers are transported as?
Bedload or suspended load
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This is the coarser fragments which move close to the bed.
Bedload
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These are finer fragments carried in the water.
Suspended load
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A specific velocity at which the grains start to move.
Entrainment Velocity.
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In rivers, areas where more particles are dropped.
Alluvial or flood plains
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In rivers, these are called the dropped particles
Alluvium
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In earth science, this is the action of surface processes that removes soil, rock, or dissolved material from one location on the earth's crust and then transports it to another location.
Erosion
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Agents of erosion inclusion:
Rainfall
Bedrock wear in rivers
Coastal erosion by the sea and waves
Glacial plucking, abrasion, and scour
Areal flooding
Wind abrasion
Ground water processes
Mass movement processes in steep landscapes like landslides and debris flows.
119
How many times did human activities increase the rate of erosion globally?
10-40 times
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What are the two primary causes of land degradation?
Water and wind erosion
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Is the geological process in which sediments, soil and rocks are added to a landform or landmass. Can also refer to the buildup of sediments from organically derived matter or chemical processes.
Deposition
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When forces responsible for sediment transportation are no longer sufficient to overcome the forces of gravity and friction, creating a resistance to motion.
Null-point hypothesis
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The geomorphic movement by which soil, sand, regolith, and rock move downslope typically as a solid, continuous or discontinuous mass, largely under the force of gravity, frequently with characteristics of flow as in Debris flows and mudfloes
Mass wasting, slope movement, mass movement
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Is the formation, movement and recession of glaciers.
Glaciation
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Are landforms created by the action of glaciers.
Glacial landform
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How many of the world's land area do glaciers cover?
10% or 14.9 million km²
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What are the 2 methods that erosion by glaciers occurs?
Abrasion and Quarrying
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This is the underlying material under the rocks.
Bedrock
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Is the process by which blocks of bedrock are removed by overriding ice
Quarrying
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An example of quarrying
Roches Moutonnées
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In glaciers, is the process in which glaciers add sand, minerals and other materials to the bedrock underneath.
Deposition
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A rounded hill or mound formed by the streamlined movement of glacial ice across rock debris.
Drumlin
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A depositional feature of high- relief forms consisting of mounds, ridges and knobs, some of which are doughnut-shaped
Hummocky moraines
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Bow-shaped ridges of varying heights and lengths
Recessional moraines, Cross-valley, ribbed, De Geer, washboard
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Single, prominent ridges marking the limit of glacial advance.
Terminal moraines
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Consists of an irregular blanket of till deposited under a glacier
Ground moraine
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Is an unsorted, unstratified glacial sediments
Glacial till
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The mixture of glacial till.
Clay, silt, sand, pebbles, cobbles, and boulders
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Can originate from the surface, inside or at the base of glaciers. Streams that can become an interconnecting network of shallow channels that carry and deposit gravel and sand.
Meltwater
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The process of breaking down and dispersing particles by wind movement
Wind erosion
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The process of the wearing away of a solid object due to the impact of particles carried by the wind.
Wind abrasion
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Rocks with flat, wind-abraded surface are reffered to as __________.
Ventifacts
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The boundary of the continent/island. Describes the area where the land meets the sea or the ocean.
Coastline
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The boundary of the land.
Shoreline
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A landform along the coast of an ocean or sea.
Beach
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Tides that are higher than normal.
Spring tides
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Tides that are lower than normal.
Neap tides
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The horizontal movement of water or air.
Currents
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What are waves often called.
Shakers
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Parts of a beach
Swash zone, Beach face, Wrack line, berm
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Is alternately covered and exposed by wave run-up
Swash zone
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Sloping sections below berm that is exposed to the swash of the eaves
Beach face
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The highest reach of the daily tide where organic and inorganic debris is deposited by eave action.
Wrack line
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A nearly horizontal portion that stays dry except during extremely high tides and storms may have sand dunes.
Berm
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Layers of soil or sediments on the beach.
Beach profile.
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A form of coast where the action of marine waves has formed steep cliffs that may or may not be precipitous.
Cliffed coast also called abrasion coast
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The continuous action of marine waves on the coastline.
Abrasion
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From when a river carrying sediments reaches another body of water.
Deltas
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Deltas form when river reaches:
-A body of standing water, such as a lake, ocean, reservoir.
-Another river that cannot remove sediments quickly enough to stop delta formation.
-Inland region where the water spreads out and deposits sediments.
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A bar of rock, sand, coral, or similar material, lying beneath the surface of water.
Reef
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Built by microorganisms or organisms that don't grow a skeletal framework.
Mounds
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Caused by on shore winds pushing water on to the coastline on the left side of the hurricane as it spins counter clockwise.
Storm Surge
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They are immense sea waves, which are produced by underwater events such as earthquakes, mud slide, and volcanic eruptions.
Tsunamis
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It is derived from many sources, most come from rainfall and melting snow.
Ground water or meteoric ground water.
165
The passage of water through the surface of the ground.
Infiltration
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It is described as the downward movement of water to the saturated zone at depth.
Percolation
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The word used to describe precipitation that has infiltrated into the ground and travels down until it reaches the impervious stratum where it is stored as groundwater.
Ground water
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Where is groundwater stored?
In the pores present in the geological formations.
169
The process in which water from saturated ground zones moves towards rivers, lakes, and seas.
Ground-water flow
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The circulation of water.
Hydrological Cycle
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The seas and oceans contain approximately _________ of all the water presently involved in the cycle.
97%
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Frozen soil
Permafrost
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The level of standing water in the ground.
Watertable
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Ground through which water flows at rates of significance to engineering works
Aquifers
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Are described as unconfined if their upper surface is ground level and confined if they are covered or confined by less permeable material.
Aquifers
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Aquifers whose upper surface is ground level.
Unconfined
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Aquifers that are covered or confined by less permeable materials.
Confined
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Ground through which water does not flow at such a rate.
Aquitard
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A surface ( bedding,fault,etc.) that separates ground of different hydrogeological character.
Hydrogeological boundary
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Where does infiltration readily occur?
Open fractures and joints in exposed rock.
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What happens when rainfall exceeds the infiltration capacity?
Results to flooding
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An underground boundary between the soil surface and the area where groundwater saturates spaces between sediments and cracks in rock.
Water Table
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Rocks and soils that transmit water with ease through their pores and fractures.
Aquifers
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Rock and soils that are difficult to transmit water.
Aquicludes
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A body of rock and/or sediments that holds groundwater.
Aquifers
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A geological formation which is impermeable to the flow of water.
Aquicludes
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A zone within the earth that restricts the flow of groundwater from one aquifer to another.
Aquitard
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An impermeable geological formation which is neither porous nor permeable.
Aquifuge
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Aquitards comprises layers of
Clay or non-porous rock with low hydraulic conductivity.
190
Typical aquifers are:
Gravel, sand, sandstone, limestone, and fractured igneous and metamorphic rocks.
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Typical Aquicludes are:
Clay, mudstones, shales, evaporite, and unfractured igneous and metamorphic rocks.
192
How does soils transmit water?
Through their pores
193
How do most rocks transmit water?
Through their pores and fractures.
194
one where the water table occurs within the aquifer layer. It is also called a water table or Phreatic aquifers.
Unconfined aquifers
195
An aquifer confined between two impermeable beds such as aquifuge, aquiclude, etc.
Confined Aquifer
The water in the confined aquifer will be under greater pressure. Hence, the water level shown by the piezometer is always higher than the top level of the confined aquifer.
The recharge of confined aquifer occurs at a place where it exposes to the ground surface
196
The pores between small clay particles.
Micropores
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Larger pore spacing between larger particles, such as sand.
Macropores
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The gap between solid particles, which contains water and air.
Soil Porosity
199
A measure of the ease of flow of a fluid through a porous solid.
Permeability
200
It is the material left behind by glaciers
Moraines
201
The water in the pores of a soil
Pore pressure
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The pressure within a porewater, this refers to the pressure of groundwater held within a soil or rock, in gaps between particles.
Pore water pressure
• Pore water pressures below the phreatic level of the groundwater are measured with PIEZOMETERS
203
The magnitude of pore water pressure is dependent on:
• The depth below the water table.
• The conditions of seepage flow
204
Pore water pressure at depth will be _______ since the void space between the solid particles is continuous.
Hydrostatic
205
This is denoting the equilibrium of liquids and the pressure exerted by liquid at rest
Hydrostatic
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The tool is used to measure pore water pressured below the phreatic level of the groundwater?
Piezometers
A device used to measure pore water pressure in the ground by measuring the height to which a column of fluid rises against gravity
207
How is the pore pressure determined in the Vadose zone?
By Capillarity
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The pore water pressure in the Vadose Zone is also referred to as?
Tension, Suction, Matric pressure
209
Matric pressures are measured with _________.
Tensiometers
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This tool operates by allowing pore water to come into equilibrium with a reference pressure indicator through a permeable ceramic cup placed in contact with the soil
Tensiometers
211
This is defined as the difference between the overburden pressure minus the measured pore pressure
Effective pressure
or
Difference pressure
•Difference pressure Governs the compactions process in sedimentary rocks.
