Tectonic Influence on Subsystems

Review Game1. At what type of tectonic boundary would you expect to find compression forces?

ANS: convergent

2. What type of forces would you expect to form at divergent plate boundaries?

ANS: tension

3. When supercontinents come together, diversity ____________ (increases/decreases).

ANS: decreases

4. When supercontinents _________________ (break apart/come together), isolation increases, leading to an increase in diversification.

ANS: break apart

5. Other than photosynthesis, what process within the hydrologic cycle removes CO2 from the atmosphere?

ANS: formation of acid rain

6. What is the name of the fault which occurs at a transform boundary?ANS: Strike-slip fault

7. What type of fault results from tension forces?ANS: Normal fault

8. What type of force causes a reverse/thrust fault?ANS: compression

9. Why are sedimentary basins of particular importance to humans?ANS: it is in these basins that coal, oil and natural gas form.

10. Why is the Atlantic saltier than the Pacific?ANS: because the strengthened Gulf Stream occurred due to

the joining of North and South America. This warm-water current causes more evaporation in the Atlantic, increasing salinity. The trade winds blow from east-west, and carry the freshwater in the form of rain across the isthmus of Panama, depositing freshwater in the Pacific, decreasing the salinity there.

11. Simplest type of fold…ANS: monocline

12. In a typical fold sequence of rock strata, the troughs are called ___________, and the crests are called _______________.

ANS: Syncline; Anticline

13. When compression forces two blocks of Earth together, and one block slides over another, what type of fault is created?

ANS: Reverse/thrust fault

14. The San Andreas fault is a strike-slip type fault. What type of plate boundary does it sit on?

ANS: transform

15. The study of terrestrial surfaces is known as topography. Studying surface features beneath the ocean is known as

ANS: Bathymetry

16. With what would you associate the word “orogeny”?

ANS: The origin and evolution of mountains

17. What type of mountains would you associate with and expect to find as a result of the collision between two continental tectonic plates?

ANS: Folded mountains

18. Why?ANS: Because the two continents are of

approximately equal density, and subduction does not occur.

19. What type of plates would be converging to form volcanic mountains?

ANS: A continental and an oceanic

20. How do plate tectonics recycle carbon?ANS: CO2 is one of the main gases present in volcanic eruptions.

Once in the atmosphere, it combines with water droplets, and precipitates out as acid rain (carbonic acid). Chemical weathering occurs once the rain hits the surface. The material is eroded away, and deposited elsewhere, where it becomes incorporated into a sedimentary rock formation (carbonate, perhaps in a basin). Once here, it slowly moves across the oceanic floor, (slab push/pull) until it reaches a subduction zone (could take millions of years). Here, it is subducted beneath the continental plate, and forced down close to the mantle, where the carbon again finds its way, in gaseous form (CO2) out through the volcanic mountains that form along this boundary.

21. When Island Arcs and seamounts collide with continents, what type of accretion has occurred?

ANS: Tectonic

22. When topographic features are weathered and eroded away, depositing them somewhere else, such as alluvial deposits by a river, what type of accretion has occurred?

ANS: landmass accretion

23.Where is the next supercontinent supposed to accrete, according to computer models? ANS: near the north polar area

24. Humans have been producing more CO2 since the Industrial Revolution. It has been difficult for tectonics to keep up with the recycling of carbon. Which Earth subsystem has been most affected?

ANS: Atmosphere

Use the following list to answer the questions below:

Gondwana Rodinia PannotiaPangaea Laurasia Amasia

25. Northern half of Pangaea known as thisANS: Laurasia

26. Supercontinent that caused snowball EarthANS: Pannotia

27. Supercontinent when only bacteria had evolved

ANS: Rodinia

28. Supercontinent of the futureANS: Amasia

29. The most complex of folds, which appear to have been upended, such as the one below, are known as what?

ANS: Recumbent

30. The fault below is an example of what type of strike-slip?

ANS: right-lateral