Dynamic Planet

=Overview= The topic for this event varies from year to year, so in an effort to retain useful content for when topics cycle back in, Yearly topics will be set up as sections within the page.

General Advice
I like to start studying for this event by taking out all the earth science, ecology, and weather books I can find. Simple as they are, it might be worth your time to start with the Macmillan books. Their 'Dynamic Earth' gives you a background on earth science if you know little or none to start with. Learning some plate tectonics basics and information on ocean floor spreading out of this book will only take you a few minutes. No matter which division you are in, it is probably worth your time to read their 'Weather' book cover to cover - again, that isn't a big time commitment, and it is a good way to freshen up on the basics.

You can also use the Demystified, or the For Dummies books to start out, they usually simplify it, but give you a good overview of the material. But I would find a college textbook to use to prepare you for state or regionals, because usually its a college professor writing the test, so they will base it off a textbook. Cheap textbooks can be found at amazon.com, abebooks.com, half-priced books, ebay, and at library book sales.

=Topics=

Volcanoes and Earthquakes
These are notes I have taken from the book Earth Science Demystified. I will be adding them to the wiki as I finish each chapter, they will be over general geology, plus the information about earthquakes and volcanoes. I hope it helps.

Chapter 1: Planet Earth

Geology - the study of the Earth, its origin, development, structure, and history

Earth
 * thought to be flat until Aristotle
 * thought to be the center of the universe until Copernicus
 * one of the inner (terrestrial) planets
 * axis is at a tilt of 23.5 degrees
 * plane of eliptic - angle of incline with which the Earth rotates on its axis around the sun

Earth's Formation
 * solar system formed from a rotating cloud of gas and dust (nebular hypothesis)
 * formed a multilayer sphere
 * heavier elements sunk (iron, nickel)
 * lighter elements rose to surface (silicon)
 * four layers
 * inner core
 * outer core
 * mantle
 * crust

Lithosphere
 * contains the crust and the top part of the mantle
 * 65-100km thick, covers the entire Earth
 * acts as an insulator to the mantle below
 * thought to float on other layers
 * originally one continent (Pangea), but then broke up and separated

Crust
 * hard, outermost covering of Earth
 * exposed to weathering
 * Continental Crust
 * landmass of Earth
 * thin compared to other layers
 * only 1% of Earth's total mass
 * thicker but less dense than oceanic crust
 * average of 30km thick, but can be up to 80km thick
 * made up of sedimentary, igneous, and metamorphic rock
 * forms 29% of Earth's surface
 * includes continental shelves
 * continental shelf - thinner edges of the continent that extend into the ocean
 * extends beyond shoreline 16-320km
 * continental slope is between the continental shelf and the sea floor
 * Oceanic Crust
 * Earth's crust below sea level
 * roughly 7-10km thick, denser than continental crust
 * experiences the heat and pressure from the mantle
 * contains ridges, trenches, and guyots

Mantle
 * the layer below the Earth's crust
 * makes up 70% of the Earth's mass
 * estimated to be 2900km thick
 * divided into upper mantle (asthenosphere) and the lower mantle (mesosphere)
 * mantle is solid but malleable
 * density increases with depth, from 3.3-6g/cm^3
 * Asthenosphere
 * made up of iron and magnesium silicates
 * thinner than mesosphere
 * found from 10-300km below the surface
 * temperature 1400-3000 degrees Celsius
 * density 3.4-4.3g/cm^3
 * Mesosphere
 * made up of oxides of Magnesium, silicon, and iron
 * from core to bottom of the asthenosphere (roughly 660km)
 * average temperature 3000 degrees Celsius
 * rock is solid due to high pressure
 * Creep - extremely slow atom by atom movement and bending of rock under pressure within the mantle
 * convection currents form in the mantle

Core
 * center of the Earth
 * mostly Nickel and Iron
 * about 30% of the Earth's mass
 * divided into outer and inner core
 * Outer core
 * about 2225km thick
 * density about 10g/cm^3
 * most likely fluid
 * Inner core
 * radius about 1275km
 * solid
 * average density 13g/cm^3
 * temperature estimated to be as high as 6650 degrees Celsius

Chapter 2: Geologic Time

Earth Time
 * called geologic time
 * a theory suggested by Hutton introduced geologic time
 * suggested that changes on Earth happened slowly

Relative Time
 * one way to determine geologic time
 * based on the age relationships between levels and samples
 * relative dating - placing a sample in an approximate time period compared to other samples with known ages
 * 3 laws of relative dating
 * Law of Superposition
 * description of layers of rock as they were piled on top of one another
 * older layers are on the bottom, newer layers are on top
 * foundation of all geologic time measurement
 * Law of Original Horizontality
 * sediments are geologic layers found in a flat horizontal direction
 * sediment - a solid material that settles out from a liquid
 * Law of Lateral Continuity
 * water-layered sediments thin out to nothing when they reach the edge of the area where they were first deposited
 * unconformity is a surface within several layers of sediment where there is a missing sedimentary layer
 * fossils can also be used to determine relative time

Absolute Time
 * second method of studying geologic time
 * done by chemical and radiological testing of different isotopes within samples
 * radioactive decay
 * measures the decay of specific isotopes in a sample
 * samples age can be determined by using:
 * amount of parent isotope (original element)
 * amount of daughter isotope (new element)
 * rate of decay of a specific radioactive isotope in the sample
 * mass spectrometer used to measure the ratios of isotopes in a sample
 * half life
 * time needed for half of a specific element sample to decay
 * carbon dating
 * uses the half life of carbon-14 to calculate geologic age
 * half life 5730 years
 * decays into nitrogen-14

Geochronological Units
 * the parts that geological time is divided into and measured in
 * first division is eons, then eras, periods, and finally epochs
 * 3 major eons are Archaen, Proterozoic, and Phanerozoic
 * Precambrian Eon
 * includes the Archaen and Proterozoic eons
 * rocks and fossils calculated to be between 4 billion and 600 million years old
 * includes formation of Earth and development of life
 * Archaen
 * considered the beginning of the time divisions
 * diverse microbial life in the oceans
 * atmosphere anaerobic
 * Proterozoic
 * earliest forms of single celled plant and animal life appear
 * Phanerozoic Eon
 * includes Paleozoic, Mesozoic, and Cenozoic Eras
 * Paleozoic
 * development of invertebrates, fish, and reptiles
 * generally tropical climate divided by Ice Ages throughout era
 * formation of Pangea
 * largest extinction in history occurred at the end of the era
 * Mesozoic
 * era of the dinosaurs
 * climate warm everywhere
 * Pangea splits into Laurasia and Gondwana
 * sudden extinction thought to be caused by an asteroid occurs
 * Cenozoic
 * mammals thrived
 * climate becomes cooler and drier
 * continents spread apart
 * humans appear in the last part of the era

Chapter 3: On the Inside

Nebular Hypothesis
 * suggested by William Kant in 1755
 * he thought that the solar system was formed from a large cloud of gas
 * the cloud would have gotten smaller due to gravity
 * rings eventually formed, which were followed by planets

Planetary Hypothesis
 * Forest Moulton and Thomas Chamberlain suggested it in 1900
 * thought the sun was a roving star that passed by and pulled some solar material with it
 * gravity had a large effect on the formation of the Earth
 * caused vertical differentiation
 * development of different layers in the Earth

Crust
 * just a thin skin compared to the whole
 * contains all land
 * made of rock
 * rock is an individual mass of solid matter that makes up part of the planet
 * top part of the crust contains granite-like rocks made of silica and aluminum
 * continental crust
 * about 650 million years old
 * made of a mixture of rock types
 * mostly light granites high in silica content
 * silica group is largest of crusts minerals
 * oceanic crust
 * mainly basaltic rock
 * heavier and contains more metals like magnesium and iron
 * about 60 million years old
 * has more active recycling than continental crust
 * subduction

Mantle
 * forms 83% of the Earth's volume and 58% of mass
 * earthquake waves jump suddenly in velocity
 * jump determined by the change in density between the crust and the mantle
 * this is called the Mohorovicic Discontinuity, which is the boundary between the crust in the mantle
 * Moho crust boundary is a mirror of the crust above it
 * this is caused by the crust floating on the mantle due to bouyancy
 * iceberg example
 * crust thicker under mountain ranges to balance the floating "tip"

Temperature
 * every 60 feet you descend into the Earth the temperature rises by 1 degree Fahrenheit
 * every kilometer down temperature increases along a thermal gradient between 15 and 75 degrees Celsius
 * core samples are rock layer samples taken by drilling or boring at different depths of the mantle and bringing up long cylinders of rock

Core
 * information about the core is gathered from other sources
 * use meteorites to help determine composition
 * seismic waves are the main thing used
 * major change in the way they travel when they reach the core-mantle boundary (depth of 2900 km)
 * use speed of waves to determine if liquid or solid
 * think core is partially molten
 * inner core
 * solid
 * 85% iron, with small amounts of nickel, silicon, and cobalt

Basic Event Info

This year resources should be allowed, though I think it will only be an 8.5" by 11" sheet of paper, front and back. So you need to only have what you don't know and what you actually won't remember on this sheet.

The general topics on the test will be earthquakes, volcanoes, geology, safety precations for earthquakes, volcanoes, and tsunamis, and then structure and interior of the earth.

Here are some links: facweb.bhc.edu/academics/science/harwoodr/GEOG102/

facweb.weber.edu/bdattilow/shknbk/notes/fltstlds.htm

www.onep.go.th/tsunamis/Tsunamis_Eng/menu1.asp

Physical Oceanography and Weather
Resource materials WILL be permitted this year.

Physical Oceanography can cover a lot of territory... basically, you should have a firm knowledge of just about everything in the water that doesn't have to do with biology. Waves, tides, currents - these are all things probably worth studying. A few examples of terms you should understand are as follows.

-upwelling current -diurnal tide -significant wave height

Before you go crazy studying weather, make sure you know how to read a basic map. If at one place on the map, you have a stem with a flag, and the flag is at the left end of the stem, does this mean the wind is going east or west? If you have a 30 mph wind, how do you show this with the little marks on the flag? You need to know this information cold - trust me, I learned the hard way.

For division B, weather on the small scale will usually include such concepts as all types of fronts, various forms of precipitation, and basic weather prediction skills. You're on your own from here...

For division C, you need to have an idea of the convection of air on the global scale... trade winds, prevailing westerlies, polar easterlies. Of course, the layers of the atmosphere are definitely good to know. You'll want to have a basic knowledge of El Ni�o too - people who run these events like to ask questions about that.

Beyond the simple advice I've given you, there's always the technique of talking to a teacher at your school who teaches earth science or something like that. If you want, use the study sites listed below, or find your own, to help you learn about earth science. But in all honesty, if you have a few thick earth science books, and you study the sections that relate to this year's topics, that is probably the best way to use your time.

=(10/99 addendum):= With the news in that you will be allowed to bring resources in to the event with you this year, I thought I should add some advice on that. I believe they are changing the idea of the event from one where you study and learn facts, to one where you apply concepts and ideas to figure things out. Make sure you bring in a good collection of resources with you, though not too extensive that you won't know where to find the information you are looking for. With this change in the event, it will definitely be a good idea to spend additional time practicing working with weather maps, charts, graphs, etc!

Have fun, and best of luck.

=Study Sites= Student Center's Earth Science Study Sites - lots of links

Frank Potter's Science Gems - Earth Science II

Yahoo - Meteorology

TWC - Weather Glossary - Yes, the folks at the Weather Channel actually have a good site with an amazing list of terms.