GEOL 0800 Fall 2018

Exam 3 Study Guide

Exam 3 is worth 25% of your grade. It will be held in the same room, Thursday, December 13, 10 am to noon.
It will consist of 50-60 multiple choice questions, and is cumulative with an emphasis on material covered since the last
exam (~ 3/4 will focus on material from lecture handouts 18-26). Use the lecture handouts and refer to the text for
clarification. Don’t forget to review and know the terms in the Quiz study guides.
Below is a study guide for Part 3 of the course (lecture handouts 18-26) For the remaining questions, make sure to
review Study Guides 1 and 2!
18. (the last half) Mineral Resources
• What are the most used metals? Examples of nonmetallic resources?
• What type of deposit is responsible for much of the world’s platinum?
• How do some gemstones (diamond, peridot, topaz) form? What is mined from kimberlite deposits?
• What type of tectonic boundary is associated with copper, mercury and silver deposits?
• How do hydrothermal ore deposits form? Examples? How does a skarn deposit form?
• What kind of deposits are associated with divergent boundaries?
• What are important nonmetallic resources formed by sedimentary processes?
• What is solution mining? What are smelters and what are environmental issues associated with them?
• What are residual ore deposits? What metals? Why recycle aluminum?
19. Mass wasting (Landslides, slump, flows and creep; subsidence)
• What increases the driving force and/or decreases the resisting force on a slope?
• How can you recognize an unstable slope prone to mass wasting? What are triggers for slope failure?
• How do elevation, drought, wildfires, rainy season, and volcanic eruptions contribute to landslides?
• How do you recognize creep? Where does solifluction occur?
• How does bedding orientation (parallel vs. perpendicular to slope) affect risk?
• What type of material is associated with landslides in the Pittsburgh area?
• What do mudlflows, debris flows and lahars have in common? How are they different? Can it occur under water?
• How can slope failures be prevented or controlled?
• What is subsidence? What can cause subsidence (natural and human-induced)? How can it be prevented? Is it
reversible?
20. Rivers and floods
• Know % of saltwater vs fresh water, and % of fresh water that's frozen vs lakes/rivers vs groundwater
• Largest drainage basins in the world? The four largest in the U.S.?
• Stream channel types in soft and hard rock vs glaciated
• Meandering stream: where does erosion (cut bank) vs deposition (point bar) occur?
• Floods - slow-rise vs flash floods. Flood probability and recurrence interval
• What's the effect of urbanization of flooding?
• How does draining wetlands affect flooding?
• How do humans contribute to the high cost of floods? (Example: Artificial levees and the levee effect)
• How can flood damage be minimized?
21. Lakes and Oceans
• How do lakes form?
• What's cultural eutrophication, what causes it, what makes it worse, and why is it a problem? Where?
• Oceans cover how much of the planet? What's the salinity of seawater and where does the salt come from?
• How does the Coriolis Effect affect wind and ocean currents? What's the mixing time of the oceans?
• What kind of features are associated with emergent coastlines? Submergent coastlines?
• What are estuaries, and why are they important? Examples?
• What causes tides, how often, and why and when do neap and spring tides occur?
• How does wave refraction affect erosion and deposition along coastlines?
• How do longshore currents move sediment? How do you escape a rip current?
• What factors affect coastal erosion, and how is coastal erosion prevented or remediated?
• How is sea level changing? Examples of areas in the US most affected by sea level rise
• What are El Niño, La Niña and ENSO? How often does El Niño occur? What are its effects?

1/2
GEOL 0800 Fall 2018
Exam 3 Study Guide

22. Landslide video (see handout 22 questions)

23. Groundwater and Karst
• What's the water table? How does groundwater flow (elevation, pressure, potential)?
• What makes a good aquifer (properties, and rock types)?
• What's the difference between a confined and unconfined aquifer? Are artesian springs pure?
• Can igneous and metamorphic rocks make good aquifers?
• How do we have oases in the desert? What kind of aquifer is in Florida?
• What's hard water?
• What's under Pittsburgh?
• What's happening in the Ogallala (High Plains) aquifer?
• How has water use affected the California Central Valley? The Colorado River? Owens Valley?
• What are some types of water pollutants, and their sources?
• What kind of bedrock (e.g., limestone) and features (e.g., caves, sinkholes, disappearing streams etc.) are
associated with karst topography? - see also handout 22b.
• What was John Snow's ghost map?
Terms: porosity vs permeability, aquitard vs aquifer, Darcy’s Law, hotsprings, geyser, saline intrusion, cone of
depression, oasis, stalactite vs stalagmite
24. Fire and Ice: Deserts
• What drives global climate change?
• What factors control global climate patterns?
• Why is Pennsylvania not a desert like the Gobi?
• What is a desert, and where are the largest deserts found? Examples of subtropical, rainshadow, coastal derts?
• Why is the Atacama region in Chile a desert?
• What are characteristic features of the Colorado Plateau and the Great Basin/Death Valley regions? Why do they
differ?
• What is loess and why is it important?
• Name four types of sand dunes
• What is desertification and and what areas are at risk?
Terms: rainshadow, talus, desert varnish, desert pavement, ventifacts, alluvial fan, playa, mesa, butte, arch, inselberg
25. Fire and Ice: Glaciers and Ice Ages
• What is a glacier?
• What are the two main types of glaciers? Where are they found (latitude, elevation)? Examples?
• What's responsible for the numerous glacial-interglacial episodes of the Pleistocene epoch? (Think Milankovich
cycles and orbital variations in tilt, precession and obliquity)
• When was the last glacial maximum (peak of the last Ice Age)? Were there Ice Ages before the Pleistocene?
• What's the temperature range between glacial (cold) periods and interglacial (warm) periods (degrees
Centigrade)?
• Know erosional (such as striations, cirques, horns etc.) and depositional (such as moraines, drumlins, eskers)
glacial features. Valley shapes (U vs V)
• What's happening to glaciers now?
Terms: firn, crevasse, ablation, alpine vs continental glacier, fjord, till, loess, permafrost, pluvial lake
26. Global change (STILL UNDER DEVELOPMENT & subject to change…]
• What's ozone? How is it formed (naturally and unnaturally) Remember good up high, bad nearby....
• What's the "ozone hole", what causes it, and what's happening to it? Why is it important? What’s the Montreal
Protocol? Why will it take decades to recover?
• How do greenhouse gases in the atmosphere regulate climate? What are the main natural greenhouse gases?
What are two greenhouse gases that are rising due to anthropogenic emissions?
• What are the effects of rapid climate change?
• What are effects of sea level rise?
• Can warming oceans result in colder temperatures? Where and why? (think Gulf Stream)
• What are possible ways to slow down the rate of global climate change?

2/2