Geology 105 -- Marine Science
Review items
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Last Update: January 27, 2012 10:40 am
- SEAWATER CHEMISTRY AND MECHANICS OF SEA WATER
- Chemical bonds - compare and contrast covalent, ionic, hydrogen and Van der Waal's bonds
- Water Molecule - why is water such a good solvent? Explain the unusual thermal properties of water:
- High freezing and boiling points
- High heat capacity
- High latent heat of melting and vaporization
- Adhesion (surface tension)
- Seawater
- Define salinity? What is meant by "normal marine salinity"?
- Understand how temperature, salinity and density are related.
- Compare and contrast thermocline, halocline and pycnocline.
- Understand controls on sea surface salinity/temperature/density and location of pycnocline in oceans
- Earth's heat budget
- energy reaching earth's surface vs. energy radiated back
- greenhouse effect
- distribution of solar energy - energy transfer - why are phase changes of water particularly efficient purveyors of heat energy?
- Atmospheric ciculation
- Vertical circulation (cells)
- Coriolis effect
- Winds on the ground vs. winds aloft
- General climate patterns - how controlled by major atmospheric belts?
- High and low pressure cells - how are wind circulation patterns around each generated?
- Ocean Circulation
- Horizontal circulation
- Eckman tramsport
- Subtropical gyres, different characteristics of western and eastern boundary currents
- Geostrophic currents
- Westward Intensification
- Know the general surface currents discussed in class (components of subtropical gyres in each hemisphere)
- Vertical circulation
- Relationship between thermocline and upwelling
- Wind-driven (upwelling)
- Equatorial, coastal, upwelling vs. downwelling
- Thermohaline
- Explain the formation of the NADW, ABW and AIW. Where and why do they occur?
- Explain processes occurring (and how they occur) at:
- Antarctic Divergence
- Antarctic Convergence
- General subsurface circulation patterns of the world's oceans
- Understand how the Leeuwin Current forms, its impact on animal and plant communities in coastal Western Australia and why the current is unusual.
- Shallow water oceanography
- Erosional coasts
- Action of waves
- Refraction - concentration of erosional attack on headlands
- Features- wave cut platforms, sea stacks, arches
- Factors influencing erosion rates
- Depositional coasts
- Longshore current-importance in generating features associated such as:
- Spits, Bay Bay Mouth Bars, Tombolos overall closing off embayed areas
- Deltas
- Effects of artificial barriers
- Jetties, breakwater, groins
- Sea Level
- Transgressions, Regressions evidence for each
- Movement of land - tectonics, build out of delta (both produce regional changes in relative sea level)
- Movement of sea - eustatic (global) sea level changes
- Longer-term cycles - sea floor spreading rates vs. icehouse and greenhouse phases of earth's climate
- Holocene Transgression
- Emergent (active margin) vs. Submergent (passive margin) coasts - features associated with each
- Glacial and interglacial stages
- Milankovitch cycles (Eccentricity - 100K; Obliquity - 41K year cycle; Precession - 21K year cycle) - what are they, how related to sea level?
- Use of oxygen isotopes to delineate warm/cold cycles
- Marine isotopic scale
- Film - "The Beaches are Moving" - understand the process by which barrier islands formed during the last ice age, the response of the coastal system to hard stabilization in general, and to seawalls in particular.
- Coastal Waters
- What are R-selected taxa, why do they tend to occur in coastal waters?
- Souces of variation in temperature and salinity - effects of changes in these characteristics
- Two ways in which coastal geostrophic currents are produced
- Estuaries - importance
- All associated with the Holocene transgression (what is the Holocene transgression?)
- Four types of estuaries - how is each produced?
- Estuarine circulation patterns
- Mangrove-dominated wetlands (tropics) vs. marsh grasses north of 30 degrees
- Tides
- You should understand the concepts of gravitational force, centripetal force and how the tidal bulges are generated
- How are spring tides created? Neap tides?
- What is a semi-diurnal tide? Diurnal inequality?
- Coral Reefs
- What does the basic coral animal look like? How does it feed? What is the importance (and consequences) of the symbiotic relationship between corals and zooxanthellae?
- What environmental conditions support reef growth?
- Fundamental components of a reef system.
- Types of disturbances affecting reefs
- From the film "Silent Sentinels":
- What is coral bleaching? Why does it occur?
- Methods used to reconstruct climate record for last 1500-2000 years
- What is an El Nino? What is is the impact of El Nino on coral reefs?
- Pattern of El Nino events prior to industrial revolution vs. modern times
- Why do some scientists think that corals will not thrive in a greenhouse world?
- From the SIG lecture
- Define ecologic succession
- What is the difference between keep up, catch up and give up reefs? Which type of reefs are preserved on Curacao?
- What is the evidence that the reefs on Curacao grew at different water depths between the onset and termination of reef building? Do they exhibit a succession?
- What is the evidence that the reefs on Curacao accumulated under fair weather conditions?
- Primary Production - what does this term mean?
- Definitions - gross vs net
- Gran Method for measuring primary production
- What is the oxygen compensation depth?
- Explain general patterns of primary productivity
- Compare and contrast physical (i.e., temperature and light) and chemical (i.e., dissolved nutrients) controlling primary production in low, temperate and high latitudes
- From the film "Salmon on the Run": what are the relevant problems facing the salmon fishery in the Pacific northwest. Take special care to discuss the different constituencies and their arguments for utilizing the resource. Does salmon "ranching" solve any (or all) of the problems the fishery faces? Why or why not?