Lecture 2: Origins
Focus Question: Why is
Earth the only planet in the solar system with liquid water?
A. About what percentage of
the water on the planet is in the ocean?
B. Where else is water found near
the surface of the Earth?
C. Which has more ocean, the northern
or southern hemisphere?
D. What two important factors control the phases (forms) of water
on a planet’s surface?
E. Why do some planets hold on to water vapor in the atmosphere, and
others don’t?
F. What is the escape velocity for Earth, Mars, and Venus?
G. What phase (form) is the water in on Earth, Mars, and Venus?
H. Where else besides Earth are scientists looking for
liquid water in the solar system?
Lecture 3: Exploration of the Oceans
Focus Question: What are the major events in the history of
exploration of the ocean?
A. How do we know about ocean explorations in prehistoric time?
B. What kinds of technological advances in ship design made ocean exploration
possible?
C. What kinds of advances in navigation and map making made ocean
exploration possible?
D. Why do maps provide a distorted
view of the world? How might this affect our perception
of the size of different
land masses or the distance between two points?
E. What did Magellan, Francis Drake, and James Cook contribute to ocean
exploration?
F. What and when was the H.M.S. Challenger expedition?
G. What did the ship Meteor achieve in ocean exploration?
H. What was Piccard’s Trieste designed to do?
Lecture 4: The Shape of the Seas
Focus Question: What are
the topographic features of the ocean floor?
A. What is an ocean basin?
What is a marginal sea? Give an example of each.
B. What are the parts of a
continental margin?
C. Are continental shelves the same
width everywhere?
D. Why are continental shelves economically
important?
E. What is a submarine canyon and
how do they form?
F. What is a mid-ocean ridge?
G. Why are abyssal plains so flat?
H. What is an ocean trench and where
are most ocean trenches found?
I. What is meant by terrigenous,
biogenic, authigenic, and cosmogenic sediments?
J. Where can you expect to
find terrigenous sediments in the oceans? Biogenic? Authigenic?
K. Can you label the shelf, slope, rise, abyssal plains,
mid-ocean ridge, and trench on a general profile of the ocean floor?
L. What are guyots and seamounts?
M. What are some ways in which the ocean floor was mapped?
Lecture 5: Plate Tectonics & the Dynamic Earth, Part 1
Focus Question: What is the significance of the trenches and
mid-ocean ridges?
A. Why do mid-ocean ridges have high heat flow, shallow earthquakes,
and hydrothermal vents?
B. Why do trenches have shallow, intermediate and deep earthquakes,
and low heat flow?
C. Where is ocean floor being made? What is it made of?
D. Where is ocean floor being destroyed? What happens to it?
E. Why is it that oceanic lithosphere is recycled, but
continental lithosphere isn't?
F. What are geographic examples of trench/volcanic mountain chains?
Can you find them on a map?
G. What are geographic examples of mid-ocean ridges? Can
you find them on a map?
H. What are convection cells?
I. What are convection cells in the asthenosphere doing below
a mid-ocean ridge? Below a trench?
Lecture 6: Plate Tectonics & the Dynamic Earth, Part II
Focus Question: Why do the lithospheric plates move and how
do we know?
A. What are the 3 types of plate boundaries? Can you find
examples of each on a map?
B. What is meant by “magnetic patterns " in the ocean floor?
C. What is meant by “normal” and “reversed” magnetic polarity?
D. Why is the youngest ocean floor closest to the mid-ocean
ridges, and the oldest ocean floor farthest from the ocean ridges?
E.. Why are ocean basins younger than continents?
F. How do convection cells make the plates move?
G. How do we know the lithospheric plates are moving, and have
moved in the past?
Lecture 7: Deep Sea Vents
Focus Question: What can hydrothermal vents tell us about
life in the dark?
A. Why do hydrothermal vents form?
B. What is unusual about the communities that live there?
C. How can these communities live without photosynthetic organisms
(plants) as the base of the food chain?
D. How do hotspots form?
E. Can you find a place in the ocean where a hotspot is located
today?
F. What can hotspots tell us about lithospheric plate motion?