Axia College Material
Appendix D
Week One Lab Report: Topographic and Contour Maps
Answer the lab questions for this week and summarize the lab experience using this form.
Full Name
Date
Carefully read pages 32-45 of Geoscience Laboratory.
Complete this week’s lab by filling in your responses to the questions from Geoscience
Laboratory. Select answers are provided for you in red font to assist you with your lab work.
Although you are only required to respond to the questions in this worksheet, you are encouraged
to answer others from the text on your own.
Lab Questions
2.10.
Given a scale of 1:24,000:
A. What is the ground distance in feet represented by three inches on the map?
6000 feet
B. What is the ground distance in meters represented by 5 cm on the map?
1200 m
C. How about the ground distance in kilometers represented by 5 cm on the map? Hint:
Multiples of units of measures—and their conversions to other systems of
measures—appear on pages i and ii at the front of this manual.
1.2 km
2.18.
A. What is the latitude indicated at the southwest corner of this quad?
Answer: 43º 45’ N
B. What is the longitude? (The latitude value lies along an imaginary east–west
extension of the southern boundary of the map; the longitude value lies along an
imaginary north–south extension of the western boundary.)
112o00’W
C. In what two counties does North Menan Butte occur?
Answer: Jefferson and Madison Counties
2.19.
A. What is the magnetic declination—that is, the difference (in degrees) between true
north (star) and magnetic north (MN arrow)?
Answer: 17º
B. What is the difference (in degrees and minutes) between true north (star) and grid
north (GN)—in this case, the line to the left of the true North line?
2.21.
0º39’
What is the fractional scale of this quad?
1:24,000
2.24.
How far—to the nearest tenth of a kilometer—is the well in section 11 from the southwest
corner of section 10?
1.2 miles
2.25.
The southwest corner of section 10 is approximately what direction—expressed as a
bearing—from the X that marks the approximate center of North Menan Butte?
SW
2.27.
A. What can you say about the elevation, in feet, of the higher of the two hills in Figure
2.19? (Be as specific as you can.)
Answer: The higher hill is more than 20 feet high, but less than 25 feet high.
B. How about the lower hill?
The lower hill is more than 15 feet high, but less than 20 feet high.
2.28.
In the stereographic contour map in Figure 2.20,
A. which of the points—A, B, or C—appears to be the highest?
Answer: A
B. which of the points appears to be the lowest?
B
2.29.
In Figure 2.20 there is a narrow gorge with a stream. Judging from the slope of the valley,
in which direction is the stream flowing— southward or northward?
Southward
2.30.
What is the contour interval shown in Figure 2.21B?
20 feet
2.31.
In Figure 2.21B, what is the relief between the lowest and highest contour lines?
100 feet
2.32.
What is the contour interval on the Menan Buttes quadrangle?
10 feet
2.33.
At the crest of south Menan Butte there are contour lines with tick-marks.
A. What do these tick-marks indicate? Hint: See the feature in the northwest quarter of
Figure 2.21B.
A depression
B. What is the approximate height, or the approximate depth, of the feature bounded by
these tick-marks on south Menan Butte?
97 feet
2.37.
Go to ‘Constructing a topographic profile’ (Fig. 2.34) across Big Island, Hawaii on page
49 of the Answer Page and follow instructions.
15, 000 ft.
10,000 ft.
5, 000 ft.
0 ft.
Lab Summary
Address the following questions in a 100- to 200-word summary:
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Summarize the general principles and purpose of the lab.
Explain how this lab helped you better understand the topics and concepts addressed this
week.
Describe what you found challenging about this lab.
Describe what you found interesting about this lab.
Write the summary here:
The purpose of this lab was to learn the different types of things that maps can illustrate and how
to interpret things from a map. Among the general principles of this lab were learning how to
understand the scale of a map, contours, direction, and elevation. This lab helped me better
understand the concepts by having us look at things on a real topographic map. Also, by
constructing a cross-section of the island from a topo map helped me better understand how to
better read a topographic map. One of the most interesting things about this lab was also the
most challenging and that was constructing the topographic profile.