E&V Study Guide for Midterm

Minerals and Rocks:

1. What is a mineral? (Be able to name one)

2. What is a rock? (be able to name one)

3. What are the three rock types? How does each type form? Give an example of a sedimentary rock and an

igneous rock.

4. What is the rock cycle?

5. When magma coos quickly, are its constituent minerals large (e.g. visible to the eye) or small (visible only

under a magnifier)? Why?

6. When a silicate rock melts beneath earth’s surface, does it expand and tend to rise? Contract and tend to

sink? Why?

7. What is magma?

8. What is Basalt?

9. Where and what are Earth’s main plates?

Plate Boundaries:

10. What are plate tectonics?

11. What is a plate?

12. Where and what are Earth’s main plates?

13. Know the following about Plate boundaries:

Divergent:

 Sea-floor spreading-

 New lithosphere-

 Mid-Atlantic Ridge-

 Continental rifting-

Transform:

 Land example (San Andreas)-

  Oceanic offsets of ridge segments-

Convergent:

 Subduction zones(Trench, arc volcanism, Benioff zone)-

 Continental/Continental collision-

14. What is happening at the different kinds of plate boundaries?

15. About how many plates are present?

16. What is the approximate rates (cm/yr)of plate velocities?

17. What is the Mid-Atlantic Ridge? Where is it? What is happening? (in terms of plate tectonics)

18. Where is the Ring of Fire? What is happening there? (in terms of plate tectonics)

Crustal deformation & structural features

19. What is tectonic stress?

 Extensional-

 Compressional-

 Shear-

20. Rock deformation caused by stress-

 Elastic-

 Brittle-

 Plastic-

21. What are the conditions favoring plastic vs. brittle? (folding vs. faulting) rock type, pressure, temperature

and time:

22. What is a fold?

 Anticline-

 Syncline-

23. What is a fault?

24. Know what the fault types are; associated stresses;

 Normal-
  Reverse-

 Strike-slip (L-lateral & R-lateral)-

25. Be able to tell whether a strike-slip fault is a right lateral or left lateral, on the basis of how previously

continuous features (like roads) have been displace by faulting.

26. Divergent boundaries are mostly associated with which kind of fault?

27. Convergent boundaries are mostly associated with which kind of fault?

28. Transform boundaries are mostly associated with which kind of fault?

29. What are joints? Volcanic cooling/contracting or pressure relief due to erosion and exposure?

Seismic Waves

30. Know the wave types (P, S,) and their relative velocity, direction of particle movement, and if they go

through solid/liquid/air.

31. Know the wave behavior: Spherical spreading, rays, refraction (bending), reflection (bouncing), and

reverberation.

32. Seismic waves in Earth’s interior: discovery of main layers (crust/mantle from bending; core from

bouncing; liquid outer core from S-wave shadow zone)

33. Know the Earth’s layers:

 Compositional (crust[continental &oceanic], mantle, core)

 Rigidity (lithosphere, asthenosphere, rest of mantle, fluid outer core, solid inner core)

34. What is a seismogram?

35. Be able to identify the P wave and S wave.

Earthquakes

36. Measurement:

 Seismometer-

 Strong-motion-

 Determining location- (How? How many seismo stations?)

37. Magnitude:

 Modified Mercalli-
  Richter magnitude-

 Moment magnitude-

38. What is the relative abundance of small vs. large earthquakes?

39. How much larger in amplitude and energy is a magnitude 6 than a magnitude 5 earthquake?

40. Why doesn’t a magnitude 10 earthquake occur? Where are the largest?

41. Cause: elastic rebound; gradual stress buildup then sudden rupture and movement.

42. What is the relation between rock strength?

43. What are earthquakes frequency, size, and offset?

44. What is the focus?

 Epicenter-

45. What is the depth of most earthquakes? What is the deepest earthquake depth?

46. Why are earthquakes confined to the lithosphere?

47. Why do they occur predominantly at plate boundaries?

48. Know what is the relation of the 3 plate boundary types to the earthquakes; size, depth, stress type, fault

type, and number of the earthquake damage.

49. What are the kinds of damage; controls on ground shaking (local intensity: earthquake size, distance, and

rock type?

50. What are the construction types [good & bad types]?

51. What is the retrofit of houses and building codes?

52. What are some of the major earthquakes (incl. tectonic setting & consequences)?

 Kwanto-

 Northridge-

 Denali-

 Alaska (Good Friday)-

 Chile-

 Loma Prieta-

 San Fernando-