Difference Between the Type of Slopes

1 GEO 347 CLIMATIC GEOMORPHOLOGY TEST #1 POTENTIAL QUESTIONS Six (6) of these questions will appear on the test and you will be asked to answer four (4) of them. The test will be available starting at 12:00 am on Friday, March 12th and your submission will be due at 11:59 pm on the same date. You may use any sources you wish to prepare for the test, but everything should be answerable from the text, lectures, and in-class assignments. Answers should emphasize key concepts, processes, and make appropriate use of specific examples. Use diagrams and formulae in support of your prose. Diagrams and formulae must be labeled, with their terms explained, and they must be cited in your prose. For the test, you will be submitting typed answers. Scanned drawings and equations will be accepted. So that your answers are concise and you don’t spend an inappropriate amount of time on the test, each typed answer must fit within the confines of two (2) pages (8 ½ x 11 inches, one-inch margins, single-spaced text, Times-Roman 12 point), including equations, diagrams, and references cited (Note: You don’t need to cite lecture notes or our textbook, Ritter et al). Diagrams are to be numbered with an explanatory caption and cited in the body of your text. 1) Landform development may exhibit properties of either steady state equilibrium or dynamic equilibrium. Geomorphologists are also interested in the role of thresholds on landform development. Discuss what these terms mean from in terms of the dynamics of (a) a feature like Niagara Falls, (b) a steep vegetated hillslope, and (c) a human-made feature such as a road built adjacent to a river or on a hillslope. 2) Explain how epeirogeny and orogeny are different. What are the major mechanisms responsible in each case? Give a minimum of two examples in each case that clearly illustrate the differences between these processes. 3) Variations in annual denudation rates are better represented as a response to effective annual precipitation rather than total precipitation. Explain with the help of one or more diagrams what this means. Discuss why such representation tools are really only effective on a regional extent. 4) What does it mean to state that an environment is weathering limited, as opposed to transport limited? Give an example of both of these diffusive properties of landform development, and describe how climate and land use influence them. 5) We identified several major processes involved in mechanical weathering of rocks. Define each of these processes and explain physically what is going on in each case. For each process discuss how you would go about recognizing it, and explain how your analysis would be affected by climatic conditions (i.e., tropical humid, semi-arid, temperate humid, etc). Use of examples and diagrams are encouraged. 6) We identified several major processes involved in chemical weathering of minerals. Define each of these processes and explain chemically what is involved with each process. Give an example for each major process, and discuss why lithology, climate, and time are important factors in trying to reconstruct the major weathering processes from an observed weathered soil or sediment. 7) Numerous factors affect the stability of both cohesive and non-cohesive slopes. Discuss how these factors combine to produce catastrophic slope failures, citing some recent examples. How are these factors affected by disturbances, such as vegetation removal, earthquakes, construction, and weather patterns? 8) This question considers two of the cases we looked at in class: 1) La Conchita, and 2) Devils Slide. Discuss to what extent the potential hazards at these sites were caused by intrinsic versus extrinsic thresholds. Compare and contrast the two cases. 2 9) Weathered minerals in soils and sediments can be used to make inferences about the climate(s) they have experienced. Explain how one would make such inferences, citing some specific examples and the dominant weathering processes involved in each case. Discuss why there may be pitfalls in using data collected in specific locations to make such inferences about past or present climate. 10) Explain using two distinct examples what is meant by complex geomorphic response. One of your examples should involve a system where the initial disturbance or perturbation is a process internal to the Earth. The other example should involve climate as a primary factor in perturbing the system. In each case discuss to what extent human activities influence the system responses to the perturbations. 11) Two major mechanisms of surface runoff are infiltration excess overland flow (Horton type) and saturation excess overland flow (Dunne type). Describe with the aid of diagrams the processes involved in the generation of runoff from each mechanism. Suggest how one might predict which mechanism is most important in a given location. Explain how it can be difficult to reconstruct the mechanism that was dominant during the formation of a now fully developed and stabilized channel network?