Earth Science

Q: On the cutaway sides of the illustration below, areas shaded light represent the zone of aeration, and areas that are darkly shaded represent the zone of saturation. All rock types are aquifers except for the labeled aquitard. On the blanks provided, fill in the name of the labeled features.

Q: The textbook makes the point that stream transport is a mechanism for sorting material. Explain how a stream sorts rocks.

Q: Where would the words "head," "mouth," "steep gradient," and "gentle gradient" be located on the diagram below?

Q: How does climate change affect the hydrologic cycle?

Q: A(n) ________ is a circular to elliptical, closed depression in karst areas.

Q: A stream flowing into a sinkhole is called a(n) ________.

Q: Which slender, conical speleothem grows from water dripping from the ceiling of a cavern?

Q: What term describes a groundwater system in which water in a well rises above the top of the aquifer without use of a pump?

Q: What feature originates where the water table intersects the land surface?

Q: The unsaturated zone above the water table is also known as the ________.

Q: What term denotes the percentage of open space or voids in a material?

Q: Highly impermeable layers such as compacted clay or shale are known as ________.

Q: As a form of flood control, ________ involves altering a stream channel to speed the flow of water to prevent it from reaching flood height.

Q: The lowest elevation limiting stream erosion is called ________.

Q: ________ refers to sediments deposited from streams.

Q: What stream characteristic is measured by the size of the largest particle that a stream can move?

Q: ________ is the total quantity of sediment carried by a river.

Q: ________ is the quantity of water flowing past a certain stream cross section per unit time.

Q: ________ is defined as the drop in elevation of the stream surface divided by the distance the water flows.

Q: ________ is the boundary line separating adjacent stream drainage basins.

Q: Which component of the water cycle describes the recharge of water to the soil and groundwater systems?

Q: Sinkholes are actively forming in portions of the southeastern United States.

Q: Karst topography is most commonly associated with areas underlain by massive sandstone strata.

Q: The formation of stalactites and stalagmites occurs in the zone of saturation.

Q: Most caves and caverns originate by solution of limestone.

Q: One environmental problem associated with groundwater is land subsidence caused by withdrawal.

Q: For a well to be characterized as being artesian, water must flow freely at the surface.

Q: Lowering of the water table around a pumping well results in a cone of infiltration.

Q: The source of heat for most hot springs is hot igneous material beneath the surface.

Q: Most hot springs in the United States are located in the southeast, especially Georgia.

Q: As its name implies, the water table is always very level (flat).

Q: Porosity is a measure of the volume of open space in rocks and unconsolidated geological materials such as alluvium and soils.

Q: Floods are the least destructive of all geologic hazards.

Q: Creating artificial cutoffs increases stream velocity.

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

Q: One river can be the base level for another.

Q: The lowest base level for most streams is sea level.

Q: Point bars are depositional features located along the outer portions of meander bends.

Q: Alluvium refers to stream deposits, mainly sand and gravel.

Q: The capacity of a stream measures the maximum size of particles it is capable of transporting.

Q: The bed load of a stream moves at average rates of meters/day to several kilometers/day in most streams.

Q: The Mississippi is only slightly smaller than the Amazon river.

Q: The Mississippi River is North America's largest river in terms of discharge.

Q: Stream discharge is defined as the quantity of water flowing past a specific channel location per unit time.

Q: Flowing water experiences friction when it flows along the sides and bottom of its channel.

Q: If two streams are otherwise identical, the stream with the smaller gradient would have the highest velocity flow.

Q: Gradients usually decrease downstream in a major river system.

Q: Trunk streams are a major region of sediment storage in a river system.

Q: More water is evaporated from the ocean than is returned to the ocean by precipitation.

Q: The hydrologic cycle is not balanced right now and, as a result, sea level is rising.

Q: Most of the water that evaporates from the oceans falls on land where it runs off to the oceans again.

Q: Examine the words and/or phrases for each question below and determine the relationship among the majority of words/phrases. Choose the option which does not fit the pattern. Sea level has risen and fallen significantly in the past history of the Earth due to climate change.

Q: The term karst topography was first used in ________. A) the Republic of Slovenia, a province of the former Yugoslavia B) eastern Canada in areas of fractured igneous and metamorphic rocks C) India, near the southern foothills of the Himalayan Mountains D) Australia for the extremely dry interior area near Ayres Rock and Alice Springs

Q: A ________ is the icicle-like speleothem that grows down from the roof of a cavern. A) stalandite B) stalactite C) stalagmite D) slagdite

Q: Which of the following is associated with areas of karst topography? A) sinkholes B) soluble rock C) caverns D) all of these

Q: A small town in New Mexico discovers that a chemical plant outside of town recently learned that one of their underground pipelines had broken without their knowledge and had been leaking a toxic organic compound for over a month. The spill occurred 5m below the surface in a sandstone above a thin shale bed in the local bedrock. The beds are flat lying and this shale crops out 200m from the chemical plant. The town gets is water from deep wells, about 300m deep. What should the town worry about from this spill? A) There is an immediate threat of contamination of the city water supply. B) There is a threat by the company to move because they do not want to clean up the damage. C) There is no immediate worry, but in the long term their city water will almost certainly be contaminated. D) There is no threat to the city water, but there is a likely health threat when the chemical moves to the surface outcrops of the layers the spill occurred in.

Q: Much of the city of New Orleans is below sea level, yet it was not an ocean when the city was first settled. How did it get below sea level? A) Drainage canals and groundwater withdrawal produced subsidence that dropped the land below sea level. B) The area was dredged to build levees, and so it was left below sea level. C) Oil production withdrew oil and produced land subsidence. D) Sea level is just rising.

Q: ________ would have the largest capacity to naturally remove sewage pollutants. A) Fractured granite B) Well-sorted, coarse gravel C) Slightly clayey sand D) Limestone with solution channels and caverns

Q: Farmer Brown lives in a semi-arid part of the United States with numerous small lakes associated with glacial deposits of sand and gravel. He decides he needs to irrigate part of his land and drills a shallow well 100m from his property line with Farmer Smith who has a small lake just across the property line, and he depends on this lake to water his cattle. By late summer, Farmer Smith goes out to his lake and discovers it is dry. What happened? A) Farmer Brown's well produced a sinkhole that swallowed up Farmer Smith's lake. B) There must have been a drought or Farmer Brown wouldn't have needed to irrigate, so it must be natural. C) Farmer Brown has been secretly pumping water from Farmer Smith's lake, and now Farmer Smith is going to come out at night with a shotgun. D) Farmer Browns well has dropped the water table in the well's cone of depression, and the well has led to the lake drying up.

Q: Which of the following best describes how geysers erupt? A) Water suddenly boils in disconnected voids and cracks above the water table, causing the aquifer to explosively fragment. B) Water slowly boils in a network of vertical cracks above the water table, sending up a plume of steam and hot water. C) Water below the water table slowly boils in a vertical crack or natural conduit, causing a plume of condensed water vapor to rise above the vent. D) With a slight reduction in pressure, water in a saturated, natural conduit suddenly boils, sending a plume of steam and hot water into the air above the vent.

Q: Hot springs are most numerous in which region of the United States? A) Southeast B) Midwest C) West D) Northeast

Q: Which one of the following concerning artesian wells is not true? A) The well penetrates an aquifer overlain by an aquitard. B) The well penetrates an aquifer underlain by an impermeable bed. C) The aquifer is generally inclined, and it is saturated to an elevation above the point where the well penetrates the aquifer. D) When the well penetrates the aquifer, the water rises to the bottom of the aquitard above the aquifer.

Q: When water is pumped from a well, a depression is often produced in the water table. Such a depression is a(n) ________. A) perched water table B) pumping dimple C) cone of depression D) artesian well

Q: An artesian well is one in which ________. A) the water is warm, fairly saline, and recharged by an affluent stream B) pressurized groundwater rises from a deep, unsaturated aquifer C) water rises above the top of the aquifer without any pumping D) the well is horizontal and the water table is perched

Q: In the canyonlands of Utah and Arizona, canyon walls often support "hanging gardens" in which plants cling to sandstone cliffs and these hanging gardens are typically along shale beds in the sandstone. These areas are deserts, so what might explain these features? A) The shales hold the water better than the sandstone, so plants preferentially grow in them. B) The shales form better soils than the sand, so the plants grow there. C) The shales form aquitards in the sandstone acquifer, trapping groundwater along the shale horizons that helps aid plant growth. D) The shales are more fractured than the sandstones so the plants have an easier time starting in the shale.

Q: Sinkholes and karst topography are a clear indication that ________. A) the groundwater is moving through cracks in the rock B) the groundwater is moving through a limestone and forming caves that periodically collapse C) the area has been subjected to past meteorite bombardments and groundwater is moving through the fractured rock D) there is nothing unusual; these features occur everywhere there is fast motion of groundwater in the subsurface

Q: Caves most commonly form in ________. A) limestone B) sandstone C) quartzite D) shale

Q: The water table is ________. A) a boundary between unsaturated bedrock and an underground river B) a boundary between unsaturated bedrock below and saturated bedrock above C) an underground mass of partly saturated rock D) a boundary between saturated rock below and unsaturated rock above

Q: ________ is the volume of voids or open space in a rock or unconsolidated material. A) Permeability B) Space yield C) Porosity D) Saturation index

Q: Permeable rock strata or sediment that transmit groundwater freely are called ________. A) perched water tables B) aquitards C) springs D) aquifers

Q: In 2011 snow melt and heavy rains in the upper Missouri River drainage basin produced record runoff that led to extensive flooding in lower Missouri River valley, despite the construction of numerous large flood control dams built on the river in the mid 20th century. What type of failure in an artificial flood control system is this an example of? A) Insufficient levee construction downstream of the dams B) A flood outside the design capabilities of the dam system overwhelmed the capacity of the reservoirs forcing opening of flood gates, exacerbating the downstream impact of the flooding C) Bad planning by the water managers who cared more about power production than downstream flooding D) It was not a failure; the dam system worked as planned. It was poor planning by the downstream government agencies.

Q: A ________ flood occurs when heavy rain strikes a mountainous area. A) regional B) flash C) monsoon D) quick

Q: Which of the following is not a form of artificial flood control? A) levee construction B) dam construction C) channel cutoff to form oxbow lakes during a flood D) forced levee breaks to deflect flood waters

Q: The city of New Orleans is in the delta of a great river. During hurricane Katrina most of the city flooded but the area along the river, like the French Quarter, did not. Why didn't these areas flood? A) The army corps of engineers must have dredged the river and built these areas up before the city was built. B) These areas were natural levees of the river, and were higher in elevation than adjacent areas. C) The water couldn't flow fast enough to cover these areas and was halted before it could flood these areas. D) The river flowed away from these areas into other parts of the city when it broke the levees, and these areas just happened to be spared.

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