Video 5: The Endless Voyage
The Ocean's Memory
Definitions and Classification:
- What is sediment?
- What is terrigenous
sediment?
How do terrigenous sediments get out
into the ocean?
- What are biogenous sediments?
Give an example of deep sea biogenous sediment.
- What are hydrogenous sediments?
Give an example of hydrogenous sediment
- What are cosmogenous sediments?
Why are micro
meteorites generally not found?
Resources:
- What do oil and gas have to do with marine
sediments?
- What sediments used for construction are obtained
from the sea floor?
- What sediments are recovered from the ocean that
might be used in fertilizer?
- Why are manganese nodules not being mined?
The Ocean's Memory
- What is wrong with the land record so that the
deep sea record of past history is better?
- About 20,000 years ago a glacier covered
Michigan. Was that the only time that the earth's climate got
really cold in the last few millions of years?
How does today's warm period compare to those of the last few millions
of years? Why do scientists think this is true?
- What have scientists learned about the speed of climate
change?
- How do deep sea sediments acquire their magnetism?
- What has happened to the earth's magnetic field in the last
2000 years? What will the field be like in 500 years if it
continues?
Techniques for
Obtaining Sediment Records
- How did early maritime explorers collect sediment?
- How long a record is collected using modern gravity cores?
- What innovative method was used in an effort to test the
theory of Plate Tectonics?
How long was the experiment supposed to take?
How successful was it?
- How different are the tools that we use to collect sediments
from those used in the 1800's? What has changed?
General
- What do oxygen isotopes represent?
- How accurately can we date marine sediments?
- How far back do we now have a pretty good idea of earths'
climate history as a result of studying sediment cores?
- Why is it important to study earth's past
climate?