GEO- Exam Three

Tensional forces normally cause which one of the following?

Fold-and-thrust belts are commonly associated with fault-block mountains.

Folded limestones that occur high in the Himalayas were originally deposited as sediments in a ________.

Large circular downwarped structures are called ________.

A thrust fault is best described as ________.

In a normal fault ________.

A horst is ________.

A(n) ________ is a thick accumulation of sediments and small, tectonic blocks formed of material scraped off a descending, lithospheric plate.

In thrust faulting, ________.

The Himalayan Mountains and Tibetan Plateau are still rising today as Eurasia slides beneath the Indian subcontinent.

Horizontal, compressive deformation involves shortening and thickening of the crust.

In a reverse fault, the hanging wall block moves up relative to the footwall block.

Terrane accretion generally occurs along a divergent boundary between a continental plate and an oceanic plate.

The mountains and valleys of the Basin and Range Province of the western United States formed in response to ________.

A good example of a present-day, passive continental margin is the ________.

________ involves movement on a zone of compressed air.

Solifluction is an important mass wasting process in areas of permafrost.

Which mass wasting process has the slowest rate of movement?

Earthflows and slumps generally involve movement of unconsolidated or weakly consolidated soil and regolith.

How do freezing, thawing, wetting, and drying contribute to soil creep?

Solifluction occurs during the warmer summer months.

Which one of the following operates primarily in areas of permafrost?

A geologist wants to locate a horizontal coal bed on a soil-covered slope where soil creep is active. A distinctive sandstone bed underlies the coal bed. On the basis of weathered sandstone fragments in the soil, where is the coal bed?

Where do the most rapid mass-wasting events occur?

Which of the following mass movements is most likely to occur in a geologic setting where the rock strata are inclined?

Consider a weathered rock or soil particle lying on a slope. How will the gravitational force pulling the particle downward along the land surface vary with the inclination of the slope?

Which one of the following materials has the maximum, sustainable, slope angle, as determined by the angle of repose?

How do the strength and cohesion of clay-rich regolith or soil change with the addition of water?

The most rapid type of mass movement is a ________.

Lahars are essentially mudflows associated with volcanoes and volcanism.

A V-shaped valley and no floodplain indicate a youthful, downcutting stream.

For the same discharge, gradient, and channel cross section, a stream with a boulder-strewn bed would be more turbulent than one with a sandy bed.

Which one of the following statements is correct?

The lower Mississippi River has the largest discharge of any river in North America.

What is the drop in water surface elevation divided by the distance the water flows?

Rapids and waterfalls are characteristic of laterally cutting streams.

The ________ river has the largest discharge of any in the world.

Many larger rivers in the Colorado Plateau region meander in deep, narrow canyons and have no floodplains. How could this happen?

A stream flowing out from a lake cannot downcut below the water surface elevation of the lake.

Natural levees are constructed of machine-compacted sand and mud; artificial levees are made of concrete.

After a meander is cut off, the gradient through the newly formed cutoff is steeper than the gradient along the abandoned meander loop.

________ is an abandoned, cutoff, meander loop.

Most precipitation in land areas originates by transpiration and by evaporation from lakes and rivers.

Gradients usually decrease downstream in a major river system.

Which of the following is the only correct response concerning the location and causes of the extraordinarily severe, 1993, flooding on the Mississippi River and tributaries?

The term karst topography was first used in ________.

Warm springs in the eastern United States are mainly heated by geologically young, igneous rocks below the surface.

In general, contaminated groundwater will be naturally cleaned faster by circulation through porous and permeable sands than by circulation through fractured, crystalline igneous and metamorphic rocks.

Artesian groundwater conditions can develop in an inclined aquifer with aquitards above and below.

A geyser can erupt because the boiling temperature of water decreases with depth below the water table.

Which of the following can logically be concluded by speleothems/dripstone hanging from a cave roof?

Permeability is the physical force that pushes water below the water table through a porous, rock material.

________ account for the largest usage of groundwater in the United States.

In areas underlain by unconsolidated or weakly consolidated strata, lowering of the water table can cause the land to subside.

Which common, rock-forming mineral or mineral group is most readily dissolved by groundwater?

What is the relationship between drawdown and the cone of depression associated with a pumping well?

Which one of the following logically explains why parts of some cavern systems are aerated?

Which one of the following concerning stalactites and stalagmites is not true?

Excessive groundwater withdrawals can cause ________.

The aerated zone ________.

A(n) ________ represents a former meltwater channel or tunnel in glacial ice that was filled with sand and gravel.

Where is the world's largest ice sheet located today?

The volume of the Antarctic ice sheet is about equal to the total volume of ice in all alpine glaciers of the world.

Rapid surge movements of the Earth's tectonic plates offer a convincing explanation for the advances and retreats of the Pleistocene ice sheets.

A(n) ________ is similar in appearance to a sinkhole of a karst area.

Which of the following best describes the term glacial drift?

Which one of the following statements concerning glacial deposits is not true?

Which one of the following applies to a valley glacier that lengthens (extends its terminus downslope) over a period of many years?

A(n) ________ is a depositional feature composed of till and only associated with continental glaciation, not with alpine glaciers.

The ________ was the most recent Pleistocene glacial episode in North America.

Which of the following glacial features would typically be found in close proximity?

A cirque represents an erosional feature formed in what was an important accumulation zone for snow and ice at the upstream head of a glacier.

The Pleistocene epoch of geological time began about 6 million years ago.

Eccentricity, obliquity, and precession are three factors involved in the Milankovitch astronomical explanation of why the Pleistocene continental ice sheets alternately grew and shrank in size.

Sand and gravel deposited by glacial meltwater streams are known as outwash till or stratified till.