Exam 2- Practice Questions ;
Note: these questions should provide additional guidance in your preparation for Exam #2 on May 31. Remember that your responsibilities for the exam include lecture material from Ch 4, 5, 6&7, and part of 17; the portions of your text covering these topics, videos, and the WWW Assignment #2 . Also, we viewed:  Video #4, Over the Edge; , Video #5, The Ocean's Memory (Sediments);  Video #6; Water: A Miraculous Substance.

1. What is the fundamental influence on the elevation of areas of the Earth's surface? What are the two fundamental elevations on the Earth's surface and what do these fundamental elevations relate to? What does Archmedes principle and isostacy have to do with these questions?
2. Describe the bathymetric features associated with plate boundaries: 1) divergent plate boundaries, 2) convergent plate boundaries, 3) transform plate boundaries. Are "fracture zones" plate boundaries? How are they related to plate boundaries?
3. Describe some other major features of the sea floor that are not related to plate boundaries? What are "hot spots"?
4. What are the deepest areas of the ocean basins?
5. What geological hazards occur on the land areas adjacent to these ocean deeps? Why are they geological hazards?
6. Other deep but not so deep areas are found adjacent to some continental margins. What is the shape of the continental margin in these "active continental margin" areas and what features are found onland near these trenches (uups gave away some of the answer!!!)
7. Where do most earthquakes and volcanic eruptions occur? What is the relationship between plate tectonic setting and the depth to earthquake focus?
8. Describe the volcanic activity that occurs on the Earth's surface. Where does it occur (mostly)? what is the source of magma? how do these magmas differ? what is the result, in terms of the types of eruptions, of volcanism in the different plate tectonic settings?
9. What is the origin of magma (molten rock) in convergent plate boundary volcanoes? How does this magma differ from magma at divergent plate boundaries and in the middle of ocean plates?
10. What's the difference between convergent and divergent plate boundary volcanism? Which type poses the most significant hazard to human activities?
11. Why map the sea floor? What are the modern technologies used for this activity?
12. What is satellite radar altimetry? How does it work? What's a "gravity anomalie"?
13. How does the change of sea level influence continental margins? Hey, what's the deal with sea level change? Why does it happen and how much change are we aware of in the recent geological past?
14. Describe the general distribution of marine sediments. What are some of the controls on the distribution of sediment types in the ocean basins. What aspects of geological history or paleoceanography can be inferred from the different kinds of sedimentary strata: 1) terrigenous, 2) biogenic, 3) hydrogenic, 4) volcanogenic?
15. How can we interpret the history of physical processes from the size shape and sorting of particles in a terrigenous sediment?
16. What's so important about the continental margin from an economic stand point? What is the most common sediment type on the continental margins?
17. What common minerals comprise the tests of marine microplankton? How does test composition influence the distribution of biogenic sediment on the sea floor? Is there a relationship between depth in the ocean and the relative solubility of these biogenic materials?
18. What are the obvious additional costs associated with fossil fuel exploration/exploitation in the marine environment? How about the hidden environmental costs?
19. Distinguish between atoms and molecules; between compounds and elements ; between protons and electrons; between ions and atoms.
20. What is the electrical charge on most stable chemical compounds? What is a simple description of a stable chemical compound?
21. Is water a stable chemical compound? What is unusual about the water molecule? What is this molecular property called? What unusual megascopic (detectable by human senses) characteristics does water possess due to this chemical characteristic?
22. Describe the significance and origin of cohesion in water. What is dissociation (or diss-association)?
23. What other substances occur in sea water besides salt? Which of these trace components is vital to biological life, especially plant growth? What is salinity and how is it measured?
24. How about gases? Is there gas "dissolved" in sea water? Which gasses are involved in the biochemical processes of photosynthesis and respiration? What types of living things photosynthesize? What types of organisms respire?
25. What other common chemical processes are similar to respiration? Can you write a simple chemical formula for these related chemical process?
26. How many grams of water could be raised 9 degrees centigrade if you could get all of the heat energy out of 1 gram of butter (pure "fat")? 1 gram of pasta (pure "carbohydrate")? [all fats, like butter, contain 9 kcal (1000 calories) per gram; all carbohydrates (including pasta or sugar) contain 4 kcals per gram]
27. Explain the change in temperature/heat energy relationship as 10 grams of ice is heated from 0 degrees celsius to steam at 100 degrees. Can you use a scatter diagram (x-y plot) to display this system?
28. Where in the oceans do changes of state take place that result in the change in sea water salinity? Top, bottom? east? west? North? South? Equator? etc. Remember salinity can be higher or lower than normal!