Shared Flashcard Set

Details

Erosion! Weathering! Caverns!
Mr. Drake Phy. Sci.
81
Geology
10th Grade
03/25/2007

Additional Geology Flashcards

 


 

Cards

Term
What is the chemical in groundwater that creates most limestone caverns?
Definition
Carbonic Acid (HCO3)
Term
What is another name for chemical weathering? Mechanical weathering?
Definition
Decomposition and Disintegration.
Term
What is exfoliation in feldspar? What type of weathering is this?
Definition
Water gets into feldspar's cleavage planes, causing it to peel or break away. Mechanical weathering.
Term
What are the 5 thermal water features?
Definition
Geysers, hot springs, mud volcanoes, fumaroles, hot pools.
Term
What are the 5 erosional agents? What is behind almost all erosion?
Definition
Running water, wind, glaciers, waves, current.
Gravity.
Term
What is erosion?
Definition
The breakdown and transportation of rocks.
Term
What breaks down iron?
Definition
Oxidation
Term
What breaks down calcite?
Definition
Carbonation.
Term
What are extremeophiles?
Definition
Microbes that thrive in places impossible to live in.
Term
Where is limestone dissolved in water eventually deposited?
Definition
In travertine dams.
Term
What rocks are most affected by mechanical weathering?
Definition
Feldspar, sedimentary rocks, soft minerals.
Term
What rocks are most affected by chemcial weathering?
Definition
Ones that go through mechanical processes easily. Ex. calcite
Term
Identify 3 factors that control the rate at which a rock weathers.
Definition
Compostion, hardness, surface area.
Term
What factor determines the durability of sedimentary rocks?
Definition
Durability of the cement.
Term
What is the most durable sedimentary cement?
Definition
Silicon based cement.
Term
What rock is most resistant to weathering?
Definition
Quartzite.
Term
Why is the water table steadily dropping in some areas?
Definition
There is more output than input.
Term
What is a paint pot?
Definition
A hot spring with bubbling mud. The termofyles that live in it make it very colorful so it is called a paintpot.
Term
What is a fumarole?
Definition
An opening in the crust that emits steam and gases.
Term
What causes a geyser?
Definition
Caused when surface water seeps into the ground where it is heated by magma and then rises back to the surface b/c of convection.
Term
What factors determine the amount and kind of mineral matter is dissolved in groundwater?
Definition
The kind of though which water passes, the distance the water travels underground, and the water temperature.
Term
What is hard water?
Definition
Hard water is water high in mineral content.
Term
What are stalactites?
Definition
Formed when hard water drips off the ceiling, each time leaving a little amount of minearl behind, causing a spike(like an icicle) to grow off the ceiling.
Term
What is a stalagmite?
Definition
Formed when hard water drips off the ceiling onto the floor, each time leaving some mineral on the floor. This eventually forms a spike or mound on the floor.
Term
What is a dripstone?
Definition
Anything formed in a cave.
Term
What is a travertine?
Definition
A chemical rock formed from being a natural precipitate of carbonate materials. Sometimes forms from calcite deposited in mineral springs.
Term
What is a geyserite?
Definition
A rock formed from hot springs or geysers that deposit minerals a little at a time.
Term
What is petrified wood?
Definition
Formed when hard water deposited minerals in the plant cells of a log and as some of its components decay away, a stone mold forms in its palce.
Term
What is an aquiclude?
Definition
A rock layer which will not permit the passage of water.
Term
What is weathering?
Definition
The break up of rock due to exposure to the atmosphere.
Term
Why do rocks weather?
Definition
B/c of the difference between conditions at depth and conditions at Earth's surface.
Term
What is mechanical weathering?
Definition
Break down of rock that occurs when rock is split or broken into smaller pieces of the same material w/o changing the composition.
Term
What is chemical weathering?
Definition
Break down of rock that occurs when the rock's minerals are changed into different substances.
Term
What is ice wedging?What is another name for it?
Definition
When water gets into cracks, freezes and enlarges the cracks. Frost action.
Term
Name some common mechanical weathering processes.
Definition
Ice wedginf, wetting and drying, action of plants and animals, loss of overlying rock and soil.
Term
What is ice heaving?
Definition
Happens when water in ground freezes and lifts pavement up. When ice thaws, the pavement collapses.
Term
How does wetting and drying weather the land?
Definition
Constant swelling and shrinking causes rocks that contain claylike minerals and rocks to break apart.
Term
What are joints?
Definition
Long curved breaks in granite caused by upward expansion.
Term
What is hydrolysis?
Definition
The chemical reaction of water with other substances.
Term
What is spheroidal weathering?
Definition
Chemical weathering that targets the corners and edges of a rock and rounds them off.
Term
In what climate do igneous rocks weather faster?
Definition
Wet climates because they often have many cracks.
Term
Marbles and limestone are fairly resistant to _______ __________.
Definition
Mechanical weathering.
Term
Limestones are very durable in _______ climates.
Definition
Dry
Term
What factors affect the rate at which rock weathers?
Definition
The rock itself, amount of suface area exposed, climate.
Term
What causes a rock to weather faster?
Definition
Breaking it into smaller pieces and increasing the surface area.
Term
What climate favors chemical weathering? Mechanical weathering?
Definition
CW=warm+wet
MW=cold+dry
Term
What is porosity?
Definition
The percentage of a material's volume that is pore space.
Term
What factors do porosity depend upon?
Definition
Particle shape, sorting.
Term
What particle shape increases porosity?
Definition
Rounded particles.
Term
What does cement do to porosity?
Definition
It reduces it.
Term
What is permeability?
Definition
The rate at which water or other liquids pass through the pore spaces of a rock.
Term
What does impermeable mean?
Definition
Water cannot pass through.
Term
A material can be porous and impermeable. Give an example and say why it is.
Definition
Pumice b/c none of its pores are connected.
Term
What is capillary water?
Definition
Film of water that sticks to particles and does not pass through like the rest of the water.
Term
What is the zone of saturation?
Definition
The part of the ground where all pore spaces are filled.
Term
What is the water table?
Definition
The surface of the zone of saturation.
Term
What are the 3 parts of the zone of aeration?
Definition
Capillary fringe(just above water table), A section that is always dry(except when it rains), a film of capillary water(just below surface).
Term
What is permafrost?
Definition
Permanently frozen layer of frozen ground.
Term
Below 20 meters, how much warmer does it get?
Definition
1 degree Celcius for every 40 m.
Term
Why do geysers erupt violently?
Definition
Because part of their tube is blocked, creating more pressure, making a hot superheated water explosion.
Term
What is a mineral spring?
Definition
A spring containing so much dissolved mineral matter that it cannot be used for drinking or washing.
Term
What are some factors that might attribute to the high mineral factor of a mineral spring?
Definition
1. The water passes through a very soluble rock 2. The water contains large amounts of gases that form acids when mixed with water 3. The water is very hot
Term
Does groundwater always contain carbonic acid?
Definition
yes.
Term
How does carbonic acid form?
Definition
When carbon dioxide in the air dissolves in falling rainwater.
Term
What does dissloving the calcite in limestone do to its porosity?
Definition
It either creates it or increases it.
Term
When do ponds or lakes form?
Definition
When a sinkhole is deep enough to meet the water table.
Term
How does most rainwater enter the ground?
Definition
Through sinkholes and fissures.
Term
Why regions are said to have karst topography?
Definition
If they have many sinks, sinkholes, ponds, lost rivers, and undergroung drainage.
Term
Where does karst topography form?
Definition
In areas with bedrock made out of calcite, dolomite, or other minerals that dissolve easily.
Term
How much water is there on Earth?
Definition
1.3333 billion cu. km.
Term
What does evapotranspiration mean?
Definition
It is just a combination of the words evaporation and transpiration.
Term
What is the hydrosphere?
Definition
The water of the EArth's surface. Includes groundwater, running water, lakes, and oceans.
Term
What is the water cycle?
Definition
The movement of water from one part of the hydrosphere to another.
Term
What is a sinkhole plain?
Definition
A large area containing many sinkholes.
Term
What is pre-karst development look like?
Definition
Area is dominated by normal fluvial erosion as streams flow across the surface of the sandstone caprock. Caves have begun to form.
Term
What happens in the early stage of karst development?
Definition
much of upper limestone has been esposed by erosion of sandstone. In areas of exposed limestone there are sinkhole plains. Cave systems are forming. Some caverns have collapsed to form collapse sinks.
Term
What are sinking streams?
Definition
Suface strams flowing off the remaining sandstone areas.
Term
What are collapse sinks?
Definition
Caverns that have formed and collapsed.
Term
What are solution valleys?
Definition
Large depressions formed from the collapse of many sinkholes that were connected.
Term
What happens during the middle stage of karst development?
Definition
Most andstone has beens destroyed except for the tops of some hills. Solution valleys have formed and shapes of these valleys still reflect the the surcae drainage pattern that originally developed in the sandstone.
Term
What happens in the late stage of karst development?
Definition
Upper limestone unit almost completely gone. A new surface drainage system has begun to form on top of the shale aquiclude(impermeable rock). When streams erode through this shale, a new round of karst development will begin on the lower limestone unit.
Supporting users have an ad free experience!