Exam 3 Review Material – Physical Geology

Terms:

alluvial fan bar base level bed load braided stream delta drainage pattern dentritic pattern trellis pattern rectangular pattern radial pattern discharge dissolved load distributary divide drainage basin flood plain hydrologic cycle incised meander meander meander cutoff

natural levee oxbow lake point bar cut bank saltation stream gradient stream terrace suspended load traction tributary yazoo tributaries aquifer confining layer artesian well cone of depression confined (artesian) aquifer ground water karst topography permeability porosity recharge

saturated zone spring sinkhole stalactite stalagmite unconfined aquifer unsaturated zone water table atoll barrier reef fringing reef guyot continental shelf shelf break continental rise continental slope abyssal plain mid-ocean ridge ocean trenches fracture zone mantle plume active margin passive margin

1. What is base level?
2. What is gradient?
3. What are three general styles of river erosion?
4. What are three stages of river evolution?
5. What features are found in each stage?  What type of gradient?  What energy level?  What size sediments are deposited in each stage?
6. How does the shape of a river channel affect the flow of a river?
7. Where across a river channel does water flow fastest?
8. What is a river basin?  A divide?
9. What are tributaries?
10. What are meanders?  Point bars?  Cutbanks?  Oxbow lakes?  How do the y change over time?
11. What are ways (three) that rivers carry material down stream?  Discuss how each process works.
12. What is a floodplain?  How do they relate to river stages?
13. What are natural levees?  How does river energy change when it goes from regular to flood stage?
14. What are back swamps?  Yazoo tributaries?  How do they relate to natural levees?
15. What are deltas?  Distributaries?
16. How does the position of a river channel/delta change/migrate over time?  Give an example?
17. Why does the Mississippi River delta have the shape (birdfoot delta) that it does?
18. How do dams affect river processes?  What are some functions of dams?
19. What are some examples of stream drainage patterns?  What landscape/bedrock/ structures influence each drainage pattern?
20. What are river bars?  Braided streams?
21. In what conditions do braided streams form?
22. What are alluvial fans?
23. How does urbanization affect runoff/flooding?
24. What are some strategies/structures for controlling floods?
25. What is the hydrologic cycle?  How do rivers/streams & groundwater fit into hydrologic cycle?
26. What is porosity?  Permeability?
27. How does the amount of groundwater on Earth compare to other fresh water sources?
28. What are examples of high/low porosity/permeability?
29. What is an aquifer?  confining layer?
30. What is a confined aquifer?  Unconfined aquifer?  Artesian aquifer?
31. What is the unsaturated zone? Saturated zone?
32. What is the water table?  How does the water table vary with the topography of the land?
33. Comment on rates of groundwater flow.  (velocity through what rock types?)
34. What is a spring? What are some features seen when water tables intersect the round surface?
35. How does a changing water level affect active wells/springs?
36. What happens locally to the water table around a well?
37. What are some examples of groundwater contamination?
38. How can excessive pumping of groundwater affect topography?
39. What is karst topography?  What are some features of karst topography?  How do they form?

40. What is the difference between active and passive margins?

41.   How do fringing reefs develop into atolls?