Geology Final Exam Word Scramble

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Question	Answer
What drives the water cycle?	Solar Energy
The areas from which streams collect water are separated into ______________, the borders of which are defined by local topographic highs.	Drainage basins
What percentage of Earth’s surface water is fresh surface water?	About 1.2%
When a stream enters a lake or ocean, the stream velocity slows. What would you expect to happen to the bedload and suspended load? What landform would this create?	The stream would lose energy and drop its sediments forming a delta.
How does an oxbow lake form?	when a meander is cut off and abandoned
Using the formula for discharge, which of these streams has the highest discharge?	A stream that is 20 feet across, 3 feet deep, and moving at 10 feet per second
Entrenched meanders on streams like the Colorado or San Juan flowing on the Colorado Plateau in Utah are a result of?	Tectonic elevation of the Colorado Plateau
Topographic highs typically define which of these features?	Drainage basins
What causes braided stream channels to form?	nearby sources of coarse sediment
What is the result of tectonic elevation of the Colorado Plateau on rivers that flow across it?	Effective lowering of base level
Where the stream velocity increases along a cut bank, what also increases?	Erosion
In terms of sediment transport, what are the types of load a river carries?	suspended, bed, dissolved
What is the energy source that drives the entire hydrologic cycle?	The Sun
What is a drainage basin?	An area that collects and drains precipitation
Which river has the largest drainage basin in North America?	Mississippi
The three things that determine the velocity of a stream are?	Gradient of terrain, Stream channel area, Discharge
Which of the following types of sediment will most likely be transported by suspension?	silt and clay
How are coarse gravel or boulders transported by streams?	Bed load
Define what is meant by a river's CAPACITY?	Measure of the total amount of sediment a stream can carry
What determines a river's capacity?	Discharge and flow velocity of the stream
Define competence	Ability of a stream to transport a particular size of material
What determines a river's competence?	Flow velocity
What is base level?	The lowest elevation to which water can erode or flow.
What are the two types of base level?	Local base level and Ultimate base level.
What is local base level?	temporary limit of stream erosion
What is ultimate base level?	the lowest elevation which a stream can reach
What is a delta?	a location where rivers enter a large body of water that form a triangular shape as the river deposits sediments and switches course.
Are oxbow lakes characteristic of rivers near base level or rivers that are far from base level?	Close to base level
People try to control floods by engineering efforts such as?	Diversion canals, Levees, Dams
Where would braided streams most likely occur?	Streams with a high sediment load and steeper slopes
What type of drainage pattern would you expect to form on a stratovolcano?	Radical
Streams transport 3 forms of what sediment loads?	dissolved load, suspended load, bed load
Dissolved loads are?	carried in solution
Suspended loads are?	carried in the water column
Bed loads are?	carried by the stream along its bottom
Groundwater comprises what portion of all water of the hydrosphere of planet Earth? and what portion of that is fresh water?	less than 1% of all water, but 25-30% of all fresh water on Earth
The zone of saturation is also called?	The Phreatic zone
The unsaturated zone is also called?	The Vadose zone
What is the process within Earth's hydrologic (water) cycle where water enters the ground water system?	infiltration
The boundary between the two zones is the?	Water table
Which of the following has the highest permeability?	Gravel
What permits ground water to flow in the subsurface?	hydraulic gradient, gravity, aquifer properties - favorable porosity and permeability.
Clay has a high porosity but poor permeability - why?	The pore spaces are too small to allow water to travel through the rock.
Which of the materials below would make the best aquifer?	Highly-fractured limestone
Ground water flows parallel to groundwater contours (lines of equal subsurface groundwater elevation)?	False
Now give an example of a good type of material for an aquitard.	Clay
The two conditions necessary for an artesian system to exist are?	Inclined aquifer and Aquitards above and below the aquifer.
A high density of extraction wells and aggressive pumping can?	cause cones of depression, and even intersecting cones of depression, lowering the local water table, cause some wells to go dry, and lower the regional water table.
How much ground subsidence has occurred in San Joaquin Valley in California due to excessive groundwater removal?	9 meters
What accounts for the formation of large fissures in the ground in some regions of Arizona, Nevada, California and Utah?	Groundwater pumping
Three of the most common and dangerous sources of groundwater pollution are?	Sewage, especially from old septic tanks, Landfills and abandoned fuel storage tanks, and DNAPLS (Dense Non-Aqueous Phase Liquids) like Trichloroethylene.
What type of rock does karst topography develop upon?	Limestone
What type of acid in solution (water) is present to dissolve limestone to form caves and sinkholes?	Carbonic

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