Help Sheet - EXAM 1

Help Session: Sunday evening @ 7:00 Pm in Carnegie 301.

Also, don't hesitate to either email me or set up a time to get together. I should be in and out throughout the week-end.

The following general questions are provided to help you focus your studying. PLEASE remember that this is not a question bank from which I will choose exam questions. It is only a road map to lead you to the main topics that we discussed in class. The Powerpoint lectures have been uploaded and you can access them. I suggest that you run through them and make sure that you can identify the main points. Perhaps the best strategy is to imagine how you would give the lecture using these slides.

A word on studying and my exams. Please keep in mind that I am a “big idea” guy. Don’t waste your time memorizing terms and getting ready to parrot back things I said in class. Understand the concepts. That’s what the course is all about…. and, therefore, the exams will stress. Terms are useful inasmuch as they let you use a single word or phrase instead of a long paragraph to conjure up an image of something. If you cant remember the term “recurve spit” you can always say “that curved beach thingy that swings into the inlet at the downdrift end of a beach”. I don’t use multiple choice – never have liked them. My short answer questions often use pictures and diagrams to set things up. You will have to look at them and make some sort of conclusion(s). Don’t fall into the trap of thinking that because the answer is short, it needn’t involve a lot of thought. Conversely, however, don’t always ignore the obvious answer for a more convoluted one. I’d try to get t

Keeping all of this in mind, here are some questions for your reading pleasure. I’d try to get to get these out of the way by Saturday night so you will have time to let the details drop off your radar screen. That will let you pack in concepts and filter the more trivial details out of your memory banks by Monday AM. I will be in late Sunday AM and will check my email then.

What is a barrier island (hencefort abbreviated “BI”)? What environments exist on or near to it? What is their relationship to the BI and the larger coastal system?

What factors influence whether a beach will erode or build out?

What makes a good coastal classification? What kinds of things should you take into account? Think hierarchically from large to small.

What makes sand move along the beach and in the nearshore zone? (2 different things)

How do ripples form and move? What is their relationship to cross beds?

What do unidirectional versus bi-directional versus oscillatory ripples tell us?

Why do waves refract? Be ready to draw how waves might change over a specific bottom configuration (e.g., Bird - Fig. 2.2).

Discuss changes in waves as they move from deep water onto the beach.

What factors determine the size of waves? What are the differences between sea and swell?

What happens to waves as they move out of the generating area?

Be prepared to answer questions that us the wave equations for deep and shallow water. I will provide the equations and calculators if I ask a question on this.

How do Leading- and Trailing-Edge coasts differ? What is responsible? What are the effects on waves and tides?

What do sediments tell us? Consider mean, sorting, rounding, etc. What is the difference between mean and sorting? What would sediments look like in a mountain stream, coastal-plain river, march, barrier beach, dune, nearshore and deep sea?

Why do we get tides? Why are there 2 bulges?

What is “diurnal inequality”?

Describe the “amphidromic system”. Consider the amphidromic point, cotidal lines and corange lines. What factors set this system up?

What are spring versus neap tides and what is responsible?

How can shelf and coastal morphology affect tidal range?

Why do we have tidal currents?

Describe the relationship between sea-level rise over the past 15,000 years and the eastern US continental shelf with respect to barrier-island formation.

Compare BI classification schemes based on tidal range only versus wave/tide dominance.

How do BI’s change from wave- to tide-dominated systems? What factors are responsible?

What are transgressive versus regressive shorelines? What factors can impact whether a coast will be transgressive or regressive?

What coastal characteristics or other factors can we use to determine the direction of sediment transport?

What is the relationship between a beach and a beach ridge?

Make sure you understand the concept of updrift and downdrift. How does this relate to beach erosion?