EXAM 1
TOP | EXAM
1 | EXAM 2 | EXAM 3 | EXAM
4
Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4
Chapter 1
- How are water and land distributed on the earth?
- What is the ocean?
- How does scientific investigation work?
- What is oceanography and what are its subdisciplines?
- When did various cultures begin exploring
the oceans and seas? Why? What did they find?
- When did humans figure out that the Earth
was a sphere, and how did they measure its size?
- What are longitude and latitude, and why are
they important?
- What are maps and charts used for? What did
early charts depict? Who made the charts?
- What are some of the important tools used by
ocean navigators (compass, sextant, clock, GPS) and how are they used?
- What are some of the important tools used by
oceanographers, and how are they used?
Chapter 2 (Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4)
- How did the Earth form? How did the oceans form?
- Why does the Earth have an ocean of liquid water?
- How and where did life originate?
Chapter 3 (Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4)
- What are the layers of the earth and what are their
characteristics?
- How is the interior of the Earth studied?
- What is isostasy and how does it affect the shape of the
Earth’s surface?
- What is the basic premise of the theory of plate tectonics?
- What are the two types of crust and what are their
characteristics?
- What is the evidence that supports plate tectonics?
- What are the types of plate boundaries and what are their
characteristics?
- What causes the plates to move?
- How does plate tectonics effect the shape of the oceans and
the continents?
Chapter 4
(Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4)
- What is the shape of the ocean floor?
- What is the evidence for the composition of the oceanic crust?
How was it collected?
- What features comprise the continental margins?
- What features are found in the deep ocean basins?
- What features would you encounter if you crossed the bottom of
the Atlantic Ocean? the Pacific Ocean? Why are they different?
- How does sediment move from the continental shelf the deep
ocean?EXAM 2
TOP | EXAM
1 | EXAM 2 | EXAM 3 | EXAM
4
Chapter 5 | Chapter 6
| Chapter 7 | Chapter 8
Chapter 5
- How are sediments characterized? (size, source,
distribution)
- What are the characteristics of sediments from different
sources?
- What are the types and characteristics of sediments found on
the continental margins? the deep-ocean basins?
- What is the calcium carbonate compensation depth? what
causes it and what is its effect?
- How are sediments turned into rock?
- How are sediments distributed worldwide?
- How are sediments sampled and studied?
- How thick is sediment on the ocean floor? how and why does
the thickness vary within an ocean basin and between different oceans?
- Where are the oldest sediments? what may happen to them in
the future?
Chapter 6
( Chapter 5 |
Chapter 6 | Chapter 7 | Chapter 8)
- What is the shape of a water molecule? why is it important?
- What is the heat capacity of water? Why is it important? How does it
compare to other substances?
- What happens, heat-wise, when water freezes and thaws? When it
evaporates and condenses?
- How does the presence of water effect the surface temperature of the
Earth?
- What is the density of water? How do salinity and temperature affect
density?
- What is the density of ice?
- How do the temperature, density and salinity of ocean water change
with depth?
- How does the surface temperature, density and salinity of ocean water
vary?
- How does salinity vary in the ocean? (on the surface or with depth,
between different dissolved constituents)
- What happens to light in seawater?
- What happens to sound in seawater? How does the speed vary with
depth?
- What is the sofar layer and what causes it?
- What are the different types of sonar?
- How can oceanographers measure the ocean temperature with sound
waves? What are the concerns?
Chapter 7 ( Chapter 5 | Chapter
6 | Chapter 7 | Chapter 8)
- What happens when something dissolves in water? What causes dissolved
substances to precipitate?
- What is salinity? How is it measured?
- What is the average salinity of seawater?
- How does salinity effect the heat capacity and freezing point of
water?
- What effects does salinity have on seawater?
- What is dissolved in seawater, where does it come from, and how do
the components vary?
- What are mixing time and residence time? How do they effect each
other?
- What determines how much stuff can be dissolved in the water?
- What is the pH of seawater? Is it stable?
Chapter 8 ( Chapter 5 | Chapter
6 | Chapter 7 | Chapter 8)
- What are climate and weather?
- What is the driving force behind weather and climate?
- What causes the seasons?
- What is the general pattern of global air circulation? (see figure
8.9) Where does the air rise and fall and what is the climate like in those locations?
- What disrupts global air circulation? (seasonal variations, rotation
of the Earth, land masses, the ocean)
- What is the Coriolis Effect and what causes it?
- What are monsoons and what causes them?
- What causes sea and land breezes in coastal areas?
- What are extratropical and tropical cyclones and what causes them?
- What are large tropical cyclones called, what is the pattern of their
movement, and where do they get their energy?
EXAM 3
TOP | EXAM
1 | EXAM 2 | EXAM 3 | EXAM
4
Chapter
9 | Chapter 10 | Chapter 11 | Chapter 12
Chapter 9
- What are the primary forces that drive the ocean currents? (wind,
thermal expansion and contraction, and density) What is their effect?
- What are the secondary forces that drive the ocean currents?
(Coriolis effect, gravity, friction, shape of the ocean basins) What is their effect?
- What is a gyre? What causes this type of flow? In what direction do
they rotate?
- Of what currents is a gyre comprised? What are their characteristics?
(depth, velocity, temperature)
- How do solar heating and ocean circulation effect sea level?
- How do the gyres interact?
- What is the transverse current? Which direction does it flow?
- What is an El Nino (ENSO) event and what causes it?
- How do ocean surface currents effect the weather?
- What is deep water upwelling and what causes it?
- What are the characteristics of bottom waters, where do they form and
sink, where do they flow and what is there residence time?
- How is ocean circulation monitored?
Chapter 10 ( Chapter 9 | Chapter 10 | Chapter 11 | Chapter 12)
- How do waves move in the open ocean?
- What are the characteristics of a wave? (wavelength, velocity,
period, height, depth of movement, crest, trough)
- What are the different types of waves? (deep, intermediate,
shallow)(wind, tsunami, seiche, tide) What are there characteristics?
- What causes waves?
- What are factors important in the creation of wind waves?
- What are sea and swell? What is a fully developed sea?
- What is the maximum height of a wind wave? Where are the largest wind
waves found?
- How do waves interact?
- What happens to waves as they approach the shore?
- What happens to waves when they pass through a chain of islands?
- What is a storm surge and what are its characteristics?
- What is a tsunami, what causes one, what are its characteristics?
- What is a seiche, what causes one, what are its characteristics?
Chapter 11 ( Chapter 9 | Chapter 10 | Chapter 11 | Chapter 12)
- What causes the tides?
- What are the characteristics of the tides? (daily, monthly)
- How and why do the tides vary along the coasts?
- What is a tidal bore? What are the tidal currents?
- What is the effect of the tides on the rotation of the Earth?
Chapter 12 ( Chapter 9 | Chapter 10 | Chapter 11 | Chapter 12)
- What is a primary coast? What causes it? What are its
characteristics?
- What is a secondary coast? What causes it? What are its
characteristics?
- How does sea level change effect the coast? tectonic movement?
glaciers?
- What is a delta? what are the different types?
- How do waves erode?
- How do waves effect a coast? What is longshore drift?
- What are the characteristics of erosional and depositional coasts?
- What is a typical beach profile? How doe it change with the seasons?
- What is longshore drift? what are its effects?
- What is a coastal cell and what are its characteristics?
- What is a barrier island?
- What are the possible causes of worldwide sea level change?
- What is an estuary? What are its characteristics?
- What are the effects of human structures on the coast?
EXAM 4
TOP | EXAM
1 | EXAM 2 | EXAM 3 | EXAM
4
Chapter
13 | Chapter 14 | Chapter 15 | Chapter 16
Chapter 13
- What are the characteristics of life?
- What is the ultimate source of the energy contained in most of our
food?
- What are autotrophs (producers) and heteroetrophs (consumers), how do
they capture and use energy?
- What are food chains, food webs, and food pyramids? What do they
show?
- What are the physical and biological factors that effect life in the
ocean? How do those factors effect life and how do living thing respond or adapt to those
factors? How do these factors vary with location? (light, transparency, dissolved gases,
dissolved nutrients, temperature, hydrostatic pressure, salinity)(osmosis, exothermic
(cold-blooded) and endothermic (warm blooded), surface area to volume ratio)(
bouyancy, viscosity)
How is the ocean divided into different zones, what are those zones?
What is evolution and how does it work? What is the evidence for
evolution?
Chapter 14 ( Chapter 13 | Chapter 14 | Chapter 15 | Chapter 16)
- What producers (autotrophs) are present in the ocean and what are
their contributions?
- What is the average annual productivity of the ocean?
- How do producers produce? (photosynthesis, chemosynthesis)
- What factors effect the activity of the producers?
- How do photosynthetic organisms deal with low levels of red light?
- What are planktonic and necktonic and benthonic? (floaters, swimmers,
bottom dwellers)
- What is meant by the compensation depth?
- What are the characteristics of diatoms, dinoflagellates,
coccolithophores, radiolarians, and copepods?
- What are the two types of marine plants? (algae/seaweeds, vascular
plants/angiosperms) What are their characteristics?
Chapter 15 ( Chapter 13 | Chapter 14 | Chapter 15 | Chapter 16)
- Where did the first animals evolve?
- What is the basis for the classification of animals into kingdoms,
phyla, etc.?
- What are some of the characteristics of the Kingdom protozoa/Protista
- What are some of the characteristics of the Phyla Porifera, Cnidaria,
Platyhelminthes, Nematoda, Annelida, Mollusca, Arthropoda, Echinodermata, Bryozoa
(important ancient reef builders), Brachiopoda (very important bivalved shell animals in
ancient fossils), Hemichordata (important transitional phyla)
- What are some of the characteristics of the Chordata Classes
(invertebrate: tunicates, lancelets) (vertebrates: agantha, condrichthyes, osteichthyes,
amphibians, reptiles, birds, mammals)
Chapter 16 ( Chapter 13 | Chapter 14 | Chapter 15 | Chapter 16)
- How do scientists organize life? (organism, population, community,
ecosystem)
- What is an organisms role in a community? (habitat, niche)
- What are the effects of competition within a community?
- How are organisms distributed within a community? Why?
- What is the carrying capacity of a community?
- What is a climax community? What happens when a community is
destroyed?
- What are the characteristics of communities? (rocky intertidal, sandy
intertidal, open ocean, estuary/salt marsh, coral reef, arctic)
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