3rd Hourly Examination

The third hourly exam will be on Thursday, April 18 during class time. The exam will test material from the reading assignments and information contained in lecture notes below.

Material you should know for 3rd hourly exam:

Physical and Chemical Properties of Water

  1. Atomic structure of the water molecule
  2. Importance of hydrogen bonding
  3. Properties of water (Heat Capacity, density, latent heat, dissolving power, etc)
  4. Understand heat and temperature in the ice-water-steam system (What is latent heat of melting/freezing and evaporation/condensation
  5. Importance of heat transfer during melting/freezing and evaporation/condensation

Hydrologic Cycle

  1. Basic understanding of box models (What does steady-state mean?)
  2. Be able to calculate residence times
  3. Inventory of water at the Earth's Surface
  4. Know major reservoirs of water and how mass and energy is transferred between them
  5. Definition of groundwater, zone of aeration, saturation, water table
  6. How does the porosity and permeability of rock relate to aquifers and aquicludes?
  7. Basic understanding of the groundwater of Flordia
  8. Major point presented in The Florida Water Story (Movie)

Weathering

  1. Importance of weathering in the rock cycle
  2. Mechanical versus chemical weathering
  3. Examples of mechanical weathering
  4. Components of typical chemical weathering reaction
  5. Limestone dissolution and karstification (e.g., Florida)
  6. Importance of weathering for chemical composition of the oceans
  7. Salinity and major dissolved cations and anions in seawater

Soils

  1. Four major components of soil
  2. Zones of typical soil profile
  3. Factors that control type of soil development
  4. Major points presented in movie "Weathering and Soils"

The Biosphere

  1. Definition
  2. Photosynthesis - Respiration reaction
  3. Macronutrients needed for plant growth
  4. What is primary productivity and biomass? How are they measured?
  5. Factors which control rates of photosynthesis
  6. How are satellites used to estimate biomass?
  7. Tropical rainforests - where are they located?
  8. Understand the problem of deforestation of tropical rainforests

The Geosphere

  1. Know the internal structure of the Earth
  2. Properties of each layer (lithosphere, asthenthosphere, mantle, outer and inner core)
  3. What is seismology and how is it used to study internal structure of Earth?
  4. Difference between p and s waves. How can they be used to infer that outer core is liquid?
  5. What was the early evidence for continental drift?
  6. Know the working hypothesis for the theory of plate tectonics
  7. 3 types of plate boundaries
  8. Features on the earth surface that mark plate boundaries
  9. 3 types of convergent plate boundaries
  10. Relation between earthquakes and plate boundaries (shallow vs. deep)
  11. Mechanisms of plate motion
  12. Hot spots and formation of volcanic island chains