Lists of things to remember from the chapter subsections:
(ones in italics are not likely to be covered on exam)
Chapter 1: The Nature of Earth Science
The Nature of Earth Science
List at least four aspects of earth science as it applies to North America.
Not on the exam
How Do Earth’s Features and Processes Influence Where and How We Live?
List some ways that earth processes control where it is safe to live and the landscape around us.
Volcanoes, steepness of hillsides, location and height and shape of mountains, location of rivers, type of soil
Explain some factors that influence where we can grow food.
Overall climate (temperatures, amount and timing of precipitation, and seasonal effects)
Steepness of slopes, type of earth materials, types of plants and animals, type and thickness of soil
How Does Earth Science Explain Our World?
Explain the difference in appearance between continents and oceans.
A reflection of differences in the types and thicknesses of rocks and in how each formed
Describe some things we can learn about Earth’s past by observing its landscapes, rocks, and fossils.
Fossils tell the story and chronology of living creatures of earth’s past (what they looked like, how big they were, how they lived, and why they died)
What Forces and Processes Affect Our Planet
Describe the different kinds of energy that impact Earth from the outside, and what effects they have on our planet.
Air pressure, Earth-Moon gravity, Sun-Earth gravity, Cosmic rays, Electromagnetic energy, Radioactive decay
List the different kinds of energy that arise within Earth’s interior and explain their origins.
Explain how Earth’s surface and atmosphere interact with solar energy.
How Do Natural Systems Operate?
Describe Earth’s four spheres.
Explain what is meant by open and closed systems.
Explain examples of positive and negative feedbacks.
What Are Some Important Earth Cycles?
Describe some examples of transfer of energy and matter in the atmosphere.
Describe the hydrologic cycle, rock cycle, and how the biosphere exchanges matter with the other spheres.
How Do Earth’s Four Spheres Interact?
Provide an example of an interaction between each pair of spheres.
Describe examples of how humans can affect the natural system in each of the four spheres.
Describe why geoscience factors are important when considering environmental issues or when evaluating potential sites for a new agricultural area or business.
How Do We Depict Earth’s Surface?
Describe how each of the four types of maps and images depicts Earth’s surface.
Describe what contours on a topographic map represent and how contour spacing indicates the steepness of a slope.
Briefly describe what a geologic map shows, using the area around SP Crater as an example.
How Do We Depict Earth’s Heights, Slopes, and Subsurface Aspects?
Describe what we mean by elevation, depth, relief, and slope.
Describe the types of diagrams earth scientists use to represent subsurface geology and the sequence of rock units.
Describe what is shown by a series of evolutionary diagrams.
How Do We Describe Locations on Earth?
Explain a parallel, meridian, latitude, and longitude indicating where the zero value is for each measurement and identifying important lines of latitude.
Briefly explain GPS.
How Do We Describe Time and Rates?
Explain what GMT is and where the starting point is.
Describe why we have time zones, and what influences time-zone boundaries and width.
Explain how we calculate rates, giving some examples of relatively fast and slow processes.
What Is Earth’s Place in the Solar System?
Describe a view of the solar system, from the Sun outward to Jupiter.
Explain why the Sun and the Moon are the most important objects to Earth.
Summarize how the outer planets are different from the inner planets.
How Do We Develop Scientific Explanations?
Explain how qualitative data differ from quantitative data.
Describe some types of quantitative data that earth scientists use.
Describe what density is, how it is calculated, and how it differs from weight.
How Do We Develop Scientific Explanations?
Explain what observations are and how they become valid.
Describe how data differ from an interpretation, and provide one example of each.
Summarize how data and interpretations lead to new explanations.
Describe how a series of observations led to an explanation for regional and local processes at Yellowstone.
How Do Scientific Ideas Get Established?
Explain the logical steps taken to evaluate an explanation.
Describe how a hypothesis becomes an established theory.
Describe what causes changes in scientific understandings, and discuss why scientific explanations are never proven to be “true”.
Chapter 2: Minerals and Mineral Resources
What Is the Difference Between a Rock and a Mineral
Explain the relationship between rocks, minerals, and chemical elements.
Explain each characteristic that a material must have to be a mineral, listing an example that is a mineral and an example that is not.
Explain the difference between a mineral in a vitamin pill and a geologic mineral.
How Are Minerals Put Together in Rocks?
Explain the difference between a clastic rock and a crystalline rock and the differences between the general environments in which clastic and crystalline rocks form.
Describe or sketch four general characteristics to observe in crystalline and clastic rocks.
How Do We Distinguish One Mineral from Another?
Explain the properties of a mineral that can be observed without using a test.
Describe how to test for hardness, streak, effervescence, and magnetism.
Explain the meaning of a mineral’s specific gravity.
Explain the Mohs Hardness Scale.
What Controls a Crystal’s Shape?
Explain what it means to say that crystals have an ordered atomic arrangement, using the crystal form of halite as an example.
Describe three common ways in which atoms are arranged in a mineral.
Explain how the shape of a crystal is affected by the environment in which the crystal grows.
Summarize three states of matter.
What Causes Cleavage in Minerals?
Explain or sketch the relationship between cleavage and the arrangement and strengths of bonds.
Explain what happens if a mineral lacks planes along which it may cleave.
Describe five types of cleavage.
How Are Minerals Classified?
Describe the Periodic Table, including the locations of the main groups of chemical elements (metals, transition metals, nonmetals, and noble gases).
List the major classes of minerals and discuss the main chemical characteristic of each class.
Describe two types of asbestos and the health controversy over asbestos.
What is the Crystalline Structure of Silicate Minerals?
Explain a silicon-oxygen tetrahedron and how one can join with another tetrahedron or a cation.
Explain or sketch how silicon-oxygen tetrahedra link in five different geometries to produce five silicate mineral groups.
Explain the differences between silicon, silica, and silicone.
What Are Some Common Silicate Minerals?
Describe the main light- and dark-colored silicate minerals, including their general characteristics, such as cleavage and main elements.
Discuss the characteristics of clay minerals and how they form.
What Are Some Common Nonsilicate Minerals?
Discuss the key chemical constituents for each of the five nonsilicate mineral groups.
Describe the major nonsilicate minerals, including their general characteristics such as color, cleavage, and any diagnostic attributes.
What Are the Building Blocks of Minerals?
Describe the relationship between a mineral and the elements of which is it composed.
Explain the structure of an atom, including its main particles.
Know the general shape of the Periodic Table and explain the significance of its rows and columns.
How Do Atoms Bond Together?
Explain the different types of bonds and how electrons cause each type.
Explain how the Periodic Table helps predict which kind of bond will form, and provide a mineral example for each kind of bond.
Explain how differences in bonds cause diamond and graphite to have very different properties.
How Do Chemical Reactions Help Minerals Grow or Dissolve?
Sketch a water molecule and illustrate why it has polarity.
Describe the properties of water that are attributable to polarity and those that are attributable to hydrogen bonding.
Describe how halite dissolves and crystallizes in water.
Describe why ice is less dense than water and why this is important.
What Are Mineral Deposits and How Do They Form?
Explain the meaning of mineral deposit, mineralization, and ore.
Summarize geologic and non-geologic factors that determine whether a mineralized body can be mined.
Summarize the four types of mineral deposits and how we use them.
Chapter 3: Earth Materials
How Do Rocks Form?
Distinguish the four families of rocks by describing how each type forms.
For each family of rocks, describe two settings where such rocks form and the processes that take place in each setting.
Describe what we mean by “the present is the key to the past” and how it is used to interpret the origin of rocks and sediment.
What Can Happen to a Rock?
Sketch a simple version of the rock cycle, labeling and explaining, in your own words, the key processes.
Describe why a rock might not experience the entire rock cycle.
Where Do Clasts Come From?
Describe the main processes of physical and chemical weathering.
Describe how the type of material and degree of fracturing influence the type of sediment that results.
Describe how rocks can be broken during transport.
What Are the Characteristics of Clastic Sediments?
Describe how sediments are classified according to size, sorting, and shape of clasts.
Describe how clast transport affects the size, shape, and sorting of clasts.
Explain four factors that influence the type of sediment transported.
What Are Some Common Sedimentary Rocks?
Describe the classification of common clastic sedimentary rocks.
Describe what happens to clastic sediment as it becomes buried and converted into rock.
Describe some common nonclastic sedimentary rocks.
Describe the natural cements that are common in sedimentary rocks.
Why Do Sedimentary Rocks Have Layers?
Describe the types of layers that sedimentary rocks contain including what defines the layers, and whether their boundaries are sharp or gradational.
Describe how layers, including graded beds and cross beds, form.
What Textures Do Igneous Rocks Display?
Describe the various textures displayed by igneous rocks.
Understand a diagram of an igneous system and show where the main igneous textures form.
What Are Common Igneous Rocks?
Describe how igneous rocks are classified, summarizing the main differences between felsic, intermediate, mafic, and ultramafic rocks.
List some common igneous rocks and a few characteristics of each.
What Are Some Metamorphic Features?
Summarize how cleavage and foliation are expressed in metamorphic rocks.
Summarize the types of features that define lineation and how each type of lineation forms.
Describe some other features that may be present in metamorphic rocks.
What Are Metamorphic Processes and Rocks?
Summarize causes of metamorphism, and describe or sketch a chemical and physical process that can accompany metamorphism.
Describe the changes different sedimentary rocks undergo as they metamorphose and the metamorphic rocks they become.
Connections: How Are Different Rock Types Expressed in Landscapes?
Describe the characteristics of some common sedimentary rocks, including their expression in landscapes.
Describe the appearance of some common igneous rocks in landscapes.
Describe some characteristics displayed by metamorphic rocks as exposed in landscapes.
Chapter 4: Earth History
Earth History
Summarize or sketch the main feature exposed at Siccar Point in Scotland, and describe how this feature formed.
Describe why the feature at Siccar Point requires a long history.
How Do We Infer the Relative Ages of Events?
Explain each of the five principles of relative dating, providing an example of each principle.
Apply the principles of relative dating to a photograph or sketch showing geologic relations among several rock units, or among rock units and structures.
What Is the Significance of an Unconformity?
Sketch an angular unconformity, a nonconformity, and a disconformity, and describe what sequence of events is implied by each.
How Are Ages Assigned to Rocks and Events?
Explain how to determine how many half-lives have passed based on the ratio of parent to daughter atoms.
Describe the different ways that isotopic dating is used for dating geologic events.
Describe how a mass spectrometer is used to determine isotopic ages.
What Are Fossils?
Describe the different ways in which a plant or animal can be preserved as a fossil.
Describe two types of commonly encountered trace fossils.
Describe the two main factors that influence whether a creature is preserved as a fossil.
Describe a feature that can be mistaken for a fossil.
How and Why Did Living Things Change Through Geologic Time?
Describe the four chapters of Earth history and how the boundaries are defined.
Describe some factors that affect survival and extinction.
Describe the difference between observed fossil changes (evolution) and evolutionary theory.
How Was the Geologic Timescale Developed?
Briefly summarize how the geologic timescale was developed.
From oldest to youngest, list the four main geologic chapters and periods.
Explain how to assign numeric ages to fossil-bearing rocks.
What Is the Evidence for the Age of Earth?
Describe early methods for determining the age of Earth and why they proved to be inaccurate.
Describe evidence that suggests Earth has a long history, including isotopic ages on basement rocks in North America.
Describe how meteorites and Moon rocks are used to interpret the age of Earth.
How Did Earth Form and Change Over Time?
Briefly describe how Earth formed and expressions of a hot early Earth.
Summarize changes in composition of the atmosphere and oceans, what caused them, and how they were expressed in the rock record.
What Were Some Milestones in the Early History of Life on Earth?
Describe the environments of early life and some important evolutionary events that took place during Earth’s early history.
Briefly describe what happened during the Cambrian explosion.
Explain four possible causes for the Great Dying, the largest extinction event in Earth history.
What Were Some Milestones in the Later History of Life on Earth?
Contrast the kinds of organisms that lived during the Mesozoic Era with those that lived during the Cenozoic Era.
Describe some of the variety observed in dinosaurs, and summarize two theories for why dinosaurs became extinct.
How Do We Study Ages of Landscapes?
Describe the sequence of events in a typical landscape of flat-lying sedimentary rocks, and describe how to constrain the ages of surfaces.
Describe or sketch how you could reconstruct the history of landscapes.
Connections: What Is the History of the Grand Canyon?
Describe examples of how different methods of dating events and rocks were used to reconstruct the geologic history of the Grand Canyon.
Describe why the canyon does not represent all of geologic time.