Natural Disasters. Take home test. Tuesday, September 20, 2016. Due 8 am, Tuesday October 4, 2016 at the beginning of the lecture period. Write answers directly on test. Please use a pencil, not a pen, to give yourself an opportunity to erase things if you wish to change something and make your answer much easier for me to read. If you have an answer that is longer than the space provided, feel free to write on the back of a page or attach an additional one but be sure to clearly label the extra page with your name and the number of the question.
Name (please print clearly in all caps):
1. Briefly describe ways in which geologic hazards or disasters have impacted you. Your answer may reflect either a direct experience or (more commonly) an indirect one.
2. You hear that studies have found a evidence for a volcanic eruption of nearly pure nickel-iron, reportedly from the Earth's outer core. This story is most likely to be accurate if (circle best answer): (a) it is aired on Channel 30 with an interview of a Fresno State geology professor; (b) It is published in the Collegian with quotations from a U.S. Geological Survey geologist; (c) It was posted on the website of a USC geology professor who is an expert in the studies of the core; (d) it was published in a peer-reviewed scientific journal; (e) There is a feature on Wikipedia about this finding.
3. More people in the world are threatened or harmed by natural disasters today than 100 years ago because (circle best answer): (a) plate tectonics are more active today than 50 years ago; (b) of the dependence of people on cell phones; (c) of improvement in construction technology have made people overly complacent and careless; (d) human activities, including pollution are triggering more earthquakes and volcanic eruptions; (e) of satellite communications technology; (f) of more rapid and efficient transportation systems. (g) of global population increase
4. When you hear about moving plates on the Earth ("plate tectonics") one is referring to plates composed of (circle one): (a) various galaxies that are plate- like in 3 dimensional shape; (b) oceanic crust only; (c) clouds; (d) the inner core; (e) the lithosphere; (f) dry crust that forms on some soil; (g) the biosphere only; (h) the lower mantle; (i) the outer core; (j) continental crust only.
5. Approximately how long would it take to close a major ocean basin, such as the Atlantic ocean, by subduction? Hint: look up information on subduction rates and also examine the width of oceans from various maps (circle best answer): (a) 1 million years; (b) 4.55 billion years; (c) 43.03 seconds; (d) 35000 years; (e) about 100 million years; (f) 100,000 years.
6. In most areas of the continental crust, significant earthquakes occur only within the upper 20 kilometers. This is best explained by (circle best answer): (a) only above 20 km have humans extracted enough petroleum to remove faults' natural lubricant so that earthquakes can occur; (b) the pressure is too low below 20 km to produce earthquakes; (c) the pressure is too great below 20 km to produce earthquakes; (d) below 20 km everything is molten; (e) below 20 lun the crust is warm in enough to deform by plastic flow instead of sliding on faults; (0 the magma sources for volcanoes only occur within the upper 15 to 20 km of the crust.
7. Which of the following has not been NOT a type of research used by scientists to learn about plate tectonics (circle best answer):
(a) Study of Earth magnetism, past and present; (b) Study of earthquakes; (c) Study of the sea floor; (d) Deep drilling and installation of monitoring devices to measure the flow in the asthenosphere; (e) Study of the age of rocks
8. The Earth's rigid pieces of lithosphere move relative to one another atop the mobile asthenosphere. The flow in the asthenosphere that facilitates the movement of the pieces of lithosphere above is (circle best answer): (a) the flow of molten rock; (b) the flow of glaciers made more plastic because of global warming; (c) the flow of hot water; (d) the movement of giant landslides; (e) the plastic flow of solid rock; (0 the flow of hot carbon dioxide "gas carpet"
9. (a) True or False (circle best answer). Most earthquakes do not take place along plate boundary zones.
(b) explain your answer to (a)
10. Fault types. (a) On the above diagrams fill in the six blanks: four main fault types and two main classes of faults.
(b) If the arrow indicating "up" on the cross view sectional diagrams was turned (rotated) 90 degrees clockwise so that it pointed right, would it change the names you put in the blanks below two diagrams?
Why or How?
(c) If the arrow indicating "north" on the map view diagrams was turned (rotated) 92 degrees anticlockwise, would it change the names you put in the blank below the two diagrams? Why or How?
(d) Does the fault drawn in the left diagram of the cross sectional views result in crustal shortening or extension?
Plate Boundary Diagrams: Note that Arrows show Relative Movement across plate boundary
11. (Refers to drawing above). Answer the four questions on this diagram by filling in the blanks corresponding with each letter.
12. Movement of a fault is (circle best answer): (a) a type of strain (b) a type of stress
13. Which of the following will NOT occur in an earthquake (circle best answer). (a) a huge crack 30 km long, lkm wide, and 30 km deep opens; (b) a fault moves 10 meters in an earthquake; (c) a tsunami kills 100 people at a distance of 1000 kilometers from the epicenter; (d) shaking from the earthquake causes a landslide that buries an entire village; (e) a dam fails as a result of shaking from an
earthquake
14. (a) Which earthquake will cause more damage at UC Berkeley (circle best answer) : (i) a M6.7 earthquake on the Hayward fault that passes through Memorial Stadium and passes along the eastern border of the campus, or (ii) a M9.5 earthquake on the subduction zone offshore of Chile? (b) Explain your answer to (a):
15 (a). Which earthquake will cause more damage to the town of Galaxy (circle best answer): (i) a M 6.5 earthquake 10 km from Galaxy or (ii) a M7.5 earthquake 10 km from Galaxy.
(b) Explain your answer to (a)
16. (a) The town of Nelson is equidistant from two faults, the Mosaic fault and the Simcoe fault. Both faults are capable of producing earthquakes up to M7. The Mosaic fault has a slip rate of 0.1 mm/yr and the Simcoe fault has a slip rate of 10 mm/yr. Which fault poses a greater hazard to the town of Nelson? Why?
17. Name a phenomenon caused by an earthquake that can cause major damage and casualties 1000 km away from some earthquakes. What sorts of areas are vulnerable to such a phenomenon?
18. Which of the following NOT likely to help researchers learn about the history of earthquakes in the San Francisco Bay area in the last 1000 years (circle best answer). (a) paleoseismic trenching investigations across faults; (b) inspection of landscape for fault scarps; (c) understanding the slip rate of faults in the San Francisco Bay region; (d) studies of unusual animal behavior.