Study questions for the quiz 6
On chapters 8 (geologic time) and 12 (rivers) Test this Thursday, 10/28
Note: Keep these questions in front of you as you read. The questions are taken directly from the
reading as I went through it. You should be able to jot down answers as you study.
What is meant by ‘Uniformitarianism’?
Who is credited with first proposing Uniformitarianism?
What is mean by ‘Catastrophism’?
What is an Unconformity?
What is an angular unconformity?
What is a nonconformity?
What is a disconformity?
What is the difference between relative and absolute ages?
What is the Principle of Superposition?
What is the Principle of faunal succession?
What is the Principle of cross-cutting relationships?
What is the Principle of inclusions?
What is a Geologic column?
What does Phanerozoic mean in Greek?
What is the primary way to determine the ‘Absolute’ or ‘Numerical Age’ of rocks?
What is meant by the term ‘Half-Life?
If you wanted to date a rock that was at least 100 million years old, what radioisotope pair (parent
and daughter isotopes0 would work better: Potassium-Argon or Carbon-14/Nitrogen-14?
If you wanted to date a rock that was at about 10 thousand years old, what radioisotope pair
(parent and daughter isotopes would work better: Potassium-Argon or Carbon-14/Nitrogen-14?
Why do we have such good dates on many fossil beds of the Western United States?
How much of geologic time is encompassed by the Precambrian? In other words, what percentage
of the Earth’s total lifespan took place before the worldwide explosion of large fossils?
Rivers
Of what does a river system or drainage basin consist?
What does the word ‘dendritic’ mean?
What are tributaries?
What are distributaries? (note: also see p. 322)
What is meant by discharge?
What is meant by gradient?
What are the main ways that material is transported by a river?
What sequence of events occurred in Cabin Creek between 1959 and 1965?
What happened to the fertility of the Nile Delta and Nile river floodplains after the Aswan Dam was built
in 1970?
What is the impact of urbanization on surface runoff and infiltration (seepage of water into the ground
to become groundwater)?
What is downcutting?
What is headward erosion?
What are entrenched meanders? (fig 12.15) Note: this is similar to a ‘superposed stream’
What is a floodplain?
What is a point bar and what processes produce it?
What is an oxbow lake?
What are natural levees?
What are braided streams and how do they form?
What are deltas?
What is the difference between an alluvial fan and a delta?
What is the greatest cause of costly, i.e. in terms of money, flood damage? P. 330
Where are the world’s major rivers located?