Geologic Mapping C

[Atomicbob11]

With respect to the idea of aquifers and underground fluids on a Geologic Mapping test, do you think the idea of Darcy's Law or calculating the rate at which water flows through a layer of rock?
The point on the Rules of which this could refer to would be "Aquifers, underground fluids, and methods of explorations and production".

Calculating the Darcy Velocity, or something of this nature, (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darcy%27s_law)? Obviously you wouldn't be forced to integrate the equation I would assume, but you could still estimate it?

Or do you guys think you would have to be given the equation, but so then this would be more of a common sense application problem where you take info given and just with understanding what the question is asking, you would be able to get the correct answer?

Anyone who writes tests, runs the event, or takes the event, please give your input. I'm trying to think what type of difficult or application questions they could ask and how they would ask such for that point in the rules.

[syo_astro]

With respect to the idea of aquifers and underground fluids on a Geologic Mapping test, do you think the idea of Darcy's Law or calculating the rate at which water flows through a layer of rock?
The point on the Rules of which this could refer to would be "Aquifers, underground fluids, and methods of explorations and production".

Calculating the Darcy Velocity, or something of this nature, (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darcy%27s_law)? Obviously you wouldn't be forced to integrate the equation I would assume, but you could still estimate it?

Or do you guys think you would have to be given the equation, but so then this would be more of a common sense application problem where you take info given and just with understanding what the question is asking, you would be able to get the correct answer?

Anyone who writes tests, runs the event, or takes the event, please give your input. I'm trying to think what type of difficult or application questions they could ask and how they would ask such for that point in the rules.

I write some tests . My interpretation is to relate it to the more mapping aspects of the event. An obvious problem to be asked about involves three point problems, gradient, etc. You certainly wouldn't have to integrate, but there are definitely questions involving Darcy's law that could be asked for scioly level. For this event specifically, *I* would avoid it because I feel like there's other questions more worth it even surrounding that hydrogeology rule. If someone wants to, they could definitely ask a question applying it. An example would be comparing water velocity through different materials (because how coarse the material is plays a large role I believe, and Darcy's law shows this?). I think that's definitely feasible, but like I said I'd rather not do it. I like to use a map, diagram, cross section, etc whenever possible for this event because it should be more hands on I feel. A few years ago there was another thing on well logs, and those also kind of play more of a role, just as another example. Can't give away too much else if per chance I have to make a test!

[danielleandrebekah]

We are new to this event and we have absolutely no clue where to even start learning this stuff . What do you recommend? Do you have any helpful resources or tips?
thanks lol

[Unome]

We are new to this event and we have absolutely no clue where to even start learning this stuff . What do you recommend? Do you have any helpful resources or tips?
thanks lol

Since it sounds like you haven't already, check the wiki page (http://scioly.org/wiki/index.php/GeoLogic_Mapping) which appears to have a good amount of information for this event. Get a copy of the rules from your coach if you haven't already. Search up everything on the rules and know how to use it, and if you have time before competition, attempt to do the same with the wiki page. Past that, I'll defer to someone who knows the event well.

[blakinator8]

Our team just had a thought from the rules- under materials, "compass" could refer to the geometric or the navigational variety.

[kmbrgandhi3]

Hey: at the invitationals I attended this year, we generally did well on 'informational' questions and could solve the majority of the stereonet/mathematics-based problems. However, there were always a couple more mathematically focused questions that tripped us up – looking back at the problems, I have been able to figure out how to do all of them with sufficient time, but I'm wondering if there is a good bank for problems that is decently comprehensive. I don't want to get tripped up similarly at states, and I think that having been exposed to more problems would help my time efficiency.

I know that this question is probably impossible to answer completely, since I imagine that there isn't one particular website or book with all of the problems that we need to know – but if people could direct me to good sets of problems that generally cover the topics in question, it would be much appreciated.

[Gemma W]

I would look for a geologic lab manual, such as this one http://www.usouthal.edu/geography/allis ... Manual.pdf, which is even available for free online. There are many such resources if you do a little googling.

[boomvroomshroom]

Okay, so this year the topic is "Geohazards", and I have yet to see any test that asks me a question on any geohazard...
I haven't even seen something about an earthquake on there, and I live in California...

[syo_astro]

Okay, so this year the topic is "Geohazards", and I have yet to see any test that asks me a question on any geohazard...
I haven't even seen something about an earthquake on there, and I live in California...

The geohazards topic is sort of weird. I've felt it's something that is mixed as far as difficulty goes. Sometimes it's just simple stuff about river floods, other times it goes in way more depth just as far as how random the term is or actually having to think a bit with using maps (like where to build stuff). As long as you get the essential ideas and know your geology (and prepared some lovely notes from...wikipedia and various googled sources), then you should be fine. Not competing, though, so maybe others have actually seen it.

[boomvroomshroom]

In general the event is just so painful to study for because they literally can just ask you anything, and most people don't know much about it anyway (even if they're geology majors or whatever because no one is really sure what to ask).

Last year the Nationals test was pretty reasonable, but I remember our regionals test was pretty crazy. The entire thing was made up of calculation-based word problems, and about a quarter of them were just borderline geology-based. The math itself wasn't hard, but it took a lot of reasoning skills (we had never seen those types of problems before and so we had to draw out and derive the formulas ourselves).

Don't get me wrong, Geomaps is a great event, but it's just so unpredictable.