Study Concepts For Exam 2 Environmental Geology - Spring 2010

Mass Wasting

-Flow vs. slide
-Components of a slope
-Angle of Repose
-Case study - Gros Ventre Slide Wyoming
-Safety Factor - What is it?
-Driving forces
-Case study Voiant Dam, Italy
-Case study, Yungay, Peru
-Prediction, Assessment and remediation methods
-Causes of land subsidence

-Case Studies
-Yungay, Peru
-Gansu Province, China
-Vaiont, Italy
-Land Subsidence (slow subsidence vs. catastrophic collapse)
--Examples:
-Hutchinson, Ks.
-Winter Park, Fl
-Arizona, California, Houston, Mexico City, etc

Earth-Sun Orbital Relationship

-Location in Solar System
-Rotation and Orbit
    Perihelion and Aphelion
-Axial Tilt, Circle of Illumination, Plane of the Ecliptic
-Cause of Seasonality
-Subpolar Point and Declination of the Sun
-Solstices and Equinox
-Significance of Tropic of Capricorn and Tropic of Cancer

-Significance of Arctic and Antarctic Circles

-Computation of Elevation Angle of the Sun  given sufficient information

Energy and the EM Spectrum

-Temperature - various measurement scales - How do they differ?
-Examples of types of energy
-Qualitative relationship between Wien's Law and Stefen-Boltzman Law, and the energy produced by earth compared to energy produced by the sun.
-Components of the EM spectrum - especially the visible range, UV range, IR range
-What is a micrometer?
-long wave vs short wave radiation
-mechanisms for transfer of heat energy into our atmosphere and planet, and out from our planet through the atmosphere (Global Energy Balance)
        Radiation, Conduction, Convection, Latent Heat
-Greenhouse effect (the mechanism)

Vertical Structure of the Atmosphere

-Know the Atmospheric Layers
    Troposphere, Tropopause, Stratosphere, Stratopause, Mesosphere, Mesopause, Thermosphere with particular attention to the Stratosphere, Tropopause and Troposphere
-What is an inversion and how is it related to the atmospheric layering?
-Impacts of UV radiation

Atmospheric Circulation

-Main Causes of Global Atmospheric Circulation
-What is Wind?
    How do we measure direction and velocity?
-What are air masses and how are they characterized?
-Why does the wind blow?
-What is atmospheric pressure, how do we measure it?
-Air masses move from high pressure to low pressure? right??
-Sun comes up in the east and sets in the west? right??
-Air pressure is lower as altitude increases in the atmosphere
-What is an isobar?
-Warm air rises? right?
-What is a Hadley Cell, Ferrel Cell, Polar Cell and how are they related to Global Circulation?
-Describe the Coriolis Effect and give an example.
-ITCZ, doldrums, horse latitudes, trade winds, equitorial low, subtropical high, polar front
-low and high pressure, converging and diverging air

Weather

-Cold Fronts, Warm Fronts, Stationary Fronts, Occluded Fronts, and associated winds with these cyclonic storms
-Types of precipitation (lifting mechanisms)
    convective, orographic, frontal
-midlatitude wave cyclones
-vertical structure of frontal boundaries
-preferred locations of cyclogenesis and occlusion
-three stages in life cycle of a thunderstorm
-tornado and hurricane formation, rating, geography, etc