Final Essay Exam GEOL 108 1. Describe the paths of water through the hydrologic cycle. Explain the processes and the energy gains and losses involved in the changes of water between its 3 states. Operationally, we often most concerned with water does when it reaches the solid earth, both on the surface and in the sub-surface. Explain the relationship between the saturated zone, the water table, a ground water well and the cone of depression, all within the sub-surface.
The water moves from one reservoir to another, such as from river to ocean, or from the ocean to the atmosphere, by the physical processes of evaporation, condensation, precipitation, infiltration, runoff, and subsurface flow. In so doing, the water goes through different phases: liquid, solid (ice), and gas (vapor). We need water to live as human, animals and plants. Without water everything would die. http://www.enchantedlearning.com The Carbon Cycle: In the atmosphere, carbon is attached to some oxygen in a gas called carbon dioxide.
Up to 60% of the human adult body is water. According to H.H. Mitchell, Journal of Biological Chemistry 158, the brain and heart are composed of 73% water, and the lungs are about 83% water. The skin contains 64% water, muscles and kidneys are 79%, and even the bones are watery: 31%. Each day humans must consume a certain amount of water to survive.
He suggested that at the centre of oceans, molten material would rise from the Earth’s mantle, causing new sea floor to be created, pushing the ocean floor. He also suggested that there were ocean trenches where old sea floor would then go back into the mantle, and molten. He found that these ocean trenches, the deepest parts of the ocean, were very near continental plates. Hess theorized that the action of the sea floor spreading caused continents to move apart and so this being evidence for continental drift, showing why it happened. The evidence of sea floor spreading was further supported by Vine and Drummond, who studied the magnetic pattern of the sea floor.
Describe and explain the formation of channel features that can be created by the process of river rejuvenation (15 marks) The long profile of a river is not a static entity and is prone to change due to changes in sea level. Over very long periods of time large changes in sea level can drastically alter the rivers potential energy and can increase the chances of vertical erosion. Sea levels change because of two principal causes - isostatic changes and eustatic changes, both of these changes can lead to rises or falls in sea level. Isostatic changes are local changes where the height of the land changes relative to the global sea level. An example of this can be found in glaciation.
Ground water deals with rainfall which is absorbed into the ground and then pumped out. Over 40% of the states water is due to ground water alone and up to 60% during droughts. There are ten major drainage basins for surface water. These include the North Coast, Sacramento river, North Lahontan, San Francisco Bay, San Joaquin River, Central Coast, Tulare Lake, South Lahontan, South Coast, and finally the Colorado River. The annual precipitation ranges from as low as four millions of acre feet to over 56 millions of acre feet.
Where is all this melting ice going? “Sea level rise is caused by two factors related to global warming: the added water coming from the melting of land ice and the expansion of sea water as it warms up” (Global Climate Change: Key Indicators, 2014). All these indicators data need to be studied as
Approximately one‐third of the millions of gallons of water used in fracking returns to the surface, where it is either reused or trucked to treatment plants. More than half the states allow the open, dirt‐brimmed waste pits that collect toxic fluids to intersect with the water table, even though waste pits are connected to hundreds of cases of water
Out of those procedures over one million were produced in the United States. The first official fracking operation was completed by Halliburton Oil Well Cementing Company in Oklahoma the year of 1949. Since then, there are now 1.1 million active oil and gas wells in the United States. These numbers are alarming and are
The glaciers weight forces itself downhill. As it moves downhill it carves the landscape because of the pressure caused by the great mass of the glacier. The glacier will continue down hill forming a U-shaped glacial valley as it carves its own path. There are other methods that a glacier uses to erode and shape the valley such as, plucking, abrasion, and freeze-thaw weathering. Plucking is when a glacier freezes onto a rock and pulls it away from the land as it moves.