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Date Submitted: 11/18/2012 08:50 AM
Geology 101 Final Study Guide
CHAPTER 1 (why study earth)
• Earth = 4.5 billion years old
• Earth System- composed of geosphere, hydrosphere, atmosphere, and biosphere
• Hypothesis- an explanation of the problem that accounts for existing data and predicts additional phenomena that should exist if the hypothesis is correct
• Principles/Laws- synonymous terms referring to statements or mathematical formulas that always succeed in describing what is observed to happen
• Theory- a widely applicable/ generally accepted explanation for natural phenomena that explains all of the existing data
• Principle of uniformitarianism- states that observations of both a process and its result can apply to the interpretation of other similar results where the process was not observed
• Plate tectonics- explains a vast array of geologic processes and features as being the result of the motion of the separate plates that make up the outermost 100 kilometers of earth
• Earth layers- core, mantle, and crust – differ in composition/physical properties
o Lithosphere- crust and uppermost mantle, down to 100 km (broken into plates)
o Asthenosphere- remaining upper mantle (less-rigid/squishier/ mostly solid)
• Tectonics- interactions between plates at boundaries that cause deformation of the lithosphere
• Plate Boundaries (3 types)
o Divergent - plates move away from one another (seafloor spreading at mid ocean ridges)
o Convergent- plates collide (mountain range formation)
▪ Subduction- process where one plate plunges under another into the deeper mantle
o Transform- plates slide past one another
• Hot spots- locations where molten material rises form deep in the mantle below the moving lithosphere as a result of processes not explained by plate tectonics
• Work = distance something moves X force required to move it
• Energy- the measure of the ability to do work (heat from sun= most...