Earth and Environmental Science Final Examination Study Guide
1. Convert 9.6 feet into inches
2. Convert 1714 centimeters into meters
3. Convert 82 milliliters into liters
4. Convert 3.7 inches into centimeters
5. Convert 835 grams to kilograms
6. Convert 13 meters into millimeters
7. Convert 54 inches into feet.
8. How did Earth form?
9. What does “big bang” refer to? When did it begin?
10. What evidence is there that the universe is expanding?
11. What are “red shifts?” What do they tell us?
12. What are the main topics included within “Earth Science?”
13. What happens to the intensity of solar energy as latitude increases?
14. How are temperature and color of stars related?
15. What is a light-year?
16. What is stellar magnitude?
17. A Hertzsprung-Russell (H-R) diagram shows the relationship between ____.
18. About 90 percent of stars on the H-R diagram are ____.
19. What color main-sequence stars are the most massive?
20. What color main-sequence stars are the least massive?
21. What is a stellar nebula?
22. What is a super nova?
23. What type of star is our sun? How will its life end?
24. What is electromagnetic radiation? What are some examples?
25. How are wavelength and color of light related?
26. What is the Doppler effect?
27. Describe the structure of an atom. What type of charge does each particle have?
28. What is the difference between ions and isotopes?
29. What is a mineral?
30. What properties of minerals can be used to identify them?
31. What is the driving force for the movement of the lithospheric plates?
32. What hypothesis did Wegener suggest? What evidence did he have for it?
33. What is paleomagnetism? What does it suggest?
34. Strips of alternating magnetic polarities found in rocks in the ocean basins ____.
35. What is a hot spot? What are some examples?
36. Draw and label the layers of the Earth.
37. Draw and label the landforms associated with:
a. divergent boundary (oceanic-oceanic)
b. convergent (oceanic-oceanic, oceanic-continental, continental-continental)
c. transform boundary
38. Describe how each of the three types of rock form.
39. Describe the rock cycle.
40. What type of rocks are fossils found in?
41. What is the difference between an earthquake’s epicenter and focus?
42. Compare and contrast P and S waves
43. What is the difference between a seismogram and a seismograph?
44. How are seismograms used to determine the epicenter of an earthquake?
45. What is the principal of uniformitarianism?
46. Explain the principal of cross-cutting relationships
47. What is an angular unconformity?
48. What is a fossil?
49. What is the difference between relative and absolute dating?
50. What conditions are ideal for fossilization?
51. What is fossil correlation?
52. What is radioactivity?
53. What is half-life?
54. How does radiometric dating work?
55. After three half-lives have passed, how much of the original parent material remains?
56. What is the geologic time scale?
57. What is the currently accepted age of Earth?
58. List the divisions of geologic time from longest to shortest (epoch, eon, period)
59. What determine’s a stream’s ability to transport sediment?
60. What is a delta?
61. What is a natural levee?
63. How do sinkholes form?
64. What causes surface currents?
65. What is the coriolis effect?
66. What is upwelling? What does it result in?
67. What is longshore current?
68. Draw an aquifer. Label the zone of saturation, the zone of aeration, and the water table.
69. What is an aquifer?____
70. What is the difference between porosity and permeability?
71. Where do springs form?
62.
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72. What happens to sediments carried in suspension by streams?
73. How can shoreline erosion be addressed? What are the pros and cons of each?
74. Where does Charlotte get its water from?
75. How does sediment move along the shore?
76. Wave impact and pressure cause ____.
77. What is wave refraction? What does it result in?
78. Where does the weather occur? (Which layer of the atmosphere?)
79. What is altitude? What effect does it have on temperature?
80. What is air pressure?
81. What is the ultimate energy source for most wind?
82. Which force generates winds?
83. How do winds blow around low-pressure systems in the Northern Hemisphere?
84. How do winds blow around high-pressure systems in the Northern Hemisphere?
85. What type of weather is associated with high and low pressure systems?
86. What latitude are most deserts found at?
87. What type of pressure is found at the equator?
88. What is the relationship between fossil fuels and the greenhouse effect?
89. During the twentieth century, Earth’s average surface temperature ____.
90. What is the difference between a scientific hypothesis and as scientific theory?
91. What effect does building a dam have on the environment?
92. How is hydroelectric power produced?
93. What measures can be taken to reduce flooding?
94. Compare and contrast surface and subsurface mining.
95. What is latitude?
96. How do streams carry most of their load?
97. What factors can cause or increase flooding?
98. What is a drainage basin? What determines its limits?
99. What are foreshocks and aftershocks?
100. What is the principle of fossil succession?
101. What different types of air masses are there? Where do they form?
102. What are fronts?
103. How do wetlands reduce flooding?
104. Why are North Carolina’s wetland mostly in the coastal plain?
105. How can private citizens help to protect groundwater?
106. What are the advantages and disadvantages of solar power?
107. What are the advantages and disadvantages of geothermal power?
108. If a neutral atom has an atomic number of 29 and an atomic mass of 71, how many
neutrons does it have?
109. If a neutral atoms atomic number is 5 and its atomic mass is 9, how many electrons
does it have?
110. If a neutral atom has an atomic number of 17 and an atomic mass of 35, how many
protons does it have?
111. What is the principle of horizontality?
112. What is the principle of superposition?
113.
114.
115.
116.
117.
What influences the density of ocean water?
What happens to the density of water when it reaches the poles?
What is the difference between wave height and wavelength?
What controls the size of ocean waves?
What is a wave?