Review Questions for the Final Exam

The format of the final will be similar to the midterms but the final will be longer. Most of it will focus on material we have covered since the second midterm (questions below). The rest will cover earlier material (sample questions on the review sheets for midterm 1 and midterm 2). There will be some broad questions and some focused ones.

• What climate, biological, and sediment conditions are necessary for dune formation? How are the dunes we saw at Salmon Creek different from those found in the Sahara Desert? How are they similar?
• Explain the concept of a threshold wind velocity for particle transport. What is the difference between the friction threshold and the impact threshold? What is the significance of this for someone sunbathing on a beach?
• Much of coastal geomorphology has a different driving force than the other fields of geomorphology. What is this driving force and how does it relate to the size of the ocean or lake basin adjacent to the coast?
• Draw a cross-sectional diagram of a beach profile. Show the beach, the low tide waterline, the high tide waterline, a berm, a cliff or dune, and a nearshore bar. Describe what happens as a wave runs up onto the beach: why does it break, how does sediment within the wave move? Draw another diagram showing what happens during a big storm in which the dune or cliff is actively being eroded.
• Describe the geomorphic processes you would expect to find along an erosional, high relief coastline. Feel free to talk about a specific place. Describe the processes you would expect to find along a low relief, depositional coastline with a barrier island.
• What geomorphic feature or process made it easier to build the Arecibo Observatory (giant radio telescope) in Puerto Rico? In what type of rock are these landforms usually found?
• Give an example of how karst can make people happy or sad. It was late and I was tired.
• Would you expect to see more or fewer streams running across the surface of a karst landscape compared to a granite landscape? Why?
• A variety of technical solutions have been devised to deal with engineering challenges in periglacial environments. What is one of these solutions, and what periglacial process was the problem?
• Using words or pictures, describe how pingos form.
• I posted the Planetary Geomorphology book chapter from Summerfield.
• Pick three geomorphic processes. For each process, how it is different on Mars, as compared to Earth? Which processes would be stronger on Mars? For each process give at least one example of a landform it produces and compare the Earth analogue to the Martian landform. Consider whether the processes you choose are presently active or if they were previously active and have left behind relict landforms.
• As Earth's climate changes over the next 100 years, some geomorphic processes and landforms will change. Choose a process or landform that would be affected by some aspect of climate change and describe how it would be different in 100 years. Choose something different than what you chose for the Mars question above.
• What was the most interesting thing you learned from someone else's presentation?