-Second layer of materials below Earth's crust

-around 100-150 km deep

-consists of Earth's crust and the top part of the mantle

-rigid and brittle materials

-Shear waves (or secondary waves)

-move like waves in a rope

-travels slower in rock but do significant damage to structures because of the rolling action

-Most damaging waves- travel across surface of Earth as opposed to through it.

-Damage moves forward and down 

-includes Rayleigh waves (rolling motion)

-plates move next to each other

-Shear forces

-one plate moves forward while the other plate moves backward- strike slip motion

-Plates move apart and one side drops down

-Extension force

-Rock that drops down: headwall

-rock that stays down: footwall

-Normal faulting: headwall drops down relative to footwall

-location of actual plate movement below surface

point of initial rupture

-Pressure of brittle rocks causes them to break and create movement

- The tract of land that contributes water to a particular stream, lake, reservoir, or other body of surface water

-drainage basins separated by drainage divides

-The height (level) of floodwaters in feet or meters above an established datum plane

-Full-bank stage: stage where water will rise and be level with edge of bank

-Flood stage: stage (height) where water will spill onto adjacent floodplain

-located on the outside of the stream bed of meandering rivers

-formed by the erosion of soil as the stream collides with the river banks

-area where water is flowing the deepest and faster

- natural embankments of sand or silt built up of coarse sediment being deposited on the edges of rivers

-present in meandering rivers during floods when waters overflow the stream banks

Q=V*T

-tells you volume of water that passes a given point within a given period of time

Volume/sec: ft^3/sec

-larger volume of water-> higher velocity-> more discharge

-A graph of the stage (height) or discharge of a body of water over time

-shape of graph depends on: duration of rainfall, type of surface, size of catchment

-shows discharge usualyl in ft^3/sec

-shows discharge before and after rain event

-Pollutants that originated from a point source such as a smoke stack or car tailpipe but was transported long-range and deposited in water, rain, air, etc.

-Pollution from numerous potential sources

-The contact between the zone of aeration and the zone of saturation

-Above water table is zone of aeration- pores filled with air and water

-Below water table is zone of saturation- pores filled with all water

-Also called potentiometric surface in an unconfined aquifer

Water-saturated body of rock or sediment whose porosity and permeability are sufficient to yield significant quantities of water to natural springs and wells

rocks or sediments (shale, clay) that lack significant permeability and therefore transmit little water

-sometimes occur as lenses that trap water and prevent it from percolating down into water table (this creates a perched water table)

A groundwater unit expressed as the volume of water that will move in a unit of time (V/T) through a unit of area measured perpendicular to the flow direction;

also known as permeability

V=(change in H/change in L) * (k/n)

k= permeability, n=porosity

change in head/change in length (distance) gives you the hydraullic gradient

Used to calculate the velocity of groundwater flow within an aquifer

Naturally radioactive- gives off gas

Only 0.7% natural Uranium- is a fissile isotope

Breaks apart when bombarded with neutron.

N hits U-235-> releases energy (in form of heat)-> gives off new elements and additional neutrons which then hit other U-235... this forms a chain reaction

-area where water is added to the zone of saturation

-aquifers transmit water from recharge areas

-Landforms composed of till, named for site of desposition

-made up of glacial till (unsorted rock debris)

-aim to maximize the use of a resource for the greatest number of people

-Floyd Dominy (from Cadillac Desert film)

 -in favor of humankind's wise and sustainable use of resources, rather than hands-off preservation

-"might as well use it if we have it" as opposed to "save it for the future if we have it"

-fuels formed by natural processes such as decomposition and buried organisms

-contain high percentages of carbon: coal, petroleum, natural gas 

-non-renewable resources because they take millions of years to form

-rises great environmental concerns

 -a resource that can be replaced by natural processes and replenished with the passage of time

-Parts of our natural environment and help form our eco-system

-examples are solar power, wind power, hydropower,

- the process by which an atomic nucleus of an unstable atom spontaneously loses energy

-atom decays without any interaction with another particle from outside the atom (i.e., without a nuclear reaction)

-occurs when the energy holding particles together isn't strong enough so nucleus breaks apart

-The amount of time it takes for 1/2 of the parent isotope to decay to the daugher isotope (a biproduct of unstable isotopes)

-Uranium 235 has halflife of 700 million

-it's harder for larger sized isotopes to undergo spontaneous decay

- releases gamma radiation, alpha and beta particles when broken apart

-particle with a positive charge

-protons and neotrons make up the nucleus of an atom

-has an atomic mass of ~1

-outter most layer on earth

-thin skin of Al and silicate-rich rocks

-oceanic and continental crust

-made up of less dense materials

-second most inner layer

-thick shell of magnesium-silicate mattter surrounding core

-makes up nearly 80% of earth's total volume

-less Si, Fe, and Mg than crust

-seismic zone in upper mantle (below lithosphere)

-involved directly with plate tectonic movement

primary waves

particle motion alternating expansion and compression (like bouncing a slinky)

velocity depends on the resistance to change of volume and shape of material

generates surface waves

tectonic plates moving towards each other and colliding

(compression force)

one thrusts over, one is pulled down (subduction) towards core

reverse faulting

horizontal compression

one plate moves forward and the other moves backwards

most common type of surface faults

ground shaking vibrations occur

slip occurs along plane

smaller earthquake that occurs after a large earthquake

formed as the crust around the displaced fault adjusts to the effects of the main shock

unpredictable

"great wave in harbor"

caused by displacement of large volumes of water from a big upward thrust of oceanic crust

Volume of water that passes a given point within a given period of time

Q=V*T in cfs

affected by precipitation and weather patterns

imp. for storm hydrology to prepare for potential floods

a series of curves in a river

formed by flowing water in a stream erroding the outter banks and therefore widening the valley

shallow gradient

develops floodplains

the lowest level at which a stream can errode its bed

ultimate base level=sea level

crescent shaped lake formed when a tight meander is cut off and abandonded

forms from tight curve in the neck of the meander, eventually touching the opposide side and cutting off the neck of the river

nearly flat land formed where a stream empties into a lake or ocean

formed from deposition of sediment carried by river

subject to flooding because they're at or near sea level

low stream gradient, swamps, lakes, shallow channels

how often a flood of a given size can be expected for a particular location on a river

T=(N+1)/M

Number of years of peak dicharge record (+1)

M= rank of discharge event

essential for risk analysis

zone located above water table and below surface

zone of soil and rock through which water and air flows

open pore spaces

groundwater zone located below water table

voids/pore space in rocks and sediment are only filled with water

the function of the volume of openings in it

expressed in a % form of the total volume of the rock

> porosity=space for water

< porosity= no space

the ease with which fluids/water can flow through an aquifer

measure of the connections between pore spaces

imp. to determine flow characteristics of groundwater in aquifer

slope or vertical change in head

influences direction and rate of groundwater flow

flows from points of high elevation to low elevation

wells that penetrate confined aquifers

allows water that has traveled through porous rock from a high elevation to rise to the surface

pumpless wellls that seem to defy gravity because pressure building up between layers of rock gets released when the water finds a path to the open space (up and out the well)

unsorted glacial sediment

mostly derived from subglacial erosion and the moving of ice

content may vary from clay to sand and gravel

unconsolidated sediments pilling up from previous glaciers

Sediments deposited by glacial meltwater that are sorted and layered

look like thin colored layers in an cross section

a major subdivision of glacial drift that includes river, lake, and marine deposits

Holds the view that the environment has an intrinsic value-solely in itself

goal to preserve the environment in its past form

make as little change as possible

if we have it we should save it

energy or material that once used is not available for reuse

usually exists in fixed amount

consumed much faster than nature can create them

coal, oil, metallic minerals

Peak oil (Hubbert's peak) refers to a singular event in history- the peak of the entire planet's oil production

rate of petroleum production tends to follow bell-shaped curve

prediction that oil production would peak around 1965-1970

Based on observation that amount of oil underground in any region is finite-rate of discovery which initially increased must at some point reach a maximum and decline

controlled nuclear reaction in which the nucleus of an atom splits into smaller parts (daughter parts)

produces free neutrons and protons

produces energy for nuclear power and to drive the explosion of nuclear weapons

the most common isotope of uranium found in nature

made up of 99.3% natural uranium

most abundant radioactive isotope

sequence of reations where reactive product or by-product causes additional reactions to take place

nuclear chain reaction created by mechanism of neutron-induced nuclear fission

self-propogating and sustains chain reaction

principle for reactors and atomic bombs

electromagnetic radiation of high frequency

produced by sub-atomic particle interactions (fission)

can penetrate through tissue (xrays)

ionizing radiation-health hazard