Beaches & Coasts – Spring, 2004

HELP QUESTIONS – EXAM 02

The following questions are provided to guide you in your studying. Do not make the mistake of assuming this is a "question bank" from which the second test will be constructed OR that the "flavor" of the questions even reflects the style of my questions. You have had one exposure, so you should have a better sense of how I construct a terst and generally how to answer my questions.

1. What is a tidal inlet? How do they form?

2. What are the main parts of a flood- and ebb-tidal delta? What are the main flow paths over and around them? What sorts of bedforms and paleo-current directions are characteristic of the two?

3. I wouldn’t be surprised to see a map or air photo of an estuary and a question that involves telling me what sorts of sediments, bedforms and transport directions occur where? Or what sorts of sedimentary rocks they might form?

4. Why do we get tidal currents? What is the relationship between the ocean elevation and the lagoon tide as water rises and falls in the ocean? How does this relate to currents in the main tidal channel through the barrier-island trend?

5. Why does the main channel through the barriers “breath” as we go from spring tides to neap tides and back?

6. What is the difference between a ripple, a megaripple and a sand wave?

7. Why are the bedforms in the main ebb channel so large? What is their net direction of movement? What sort (and direction) of cross beds does this form? Why are these bedforms oriented in the direction they are?

8. Why does a flood-tidal delta look so much like a sheep with droopy ears (or maybe a trilobite with long arms) when viewed from the air?

9. How do tidal inlets and their associated sand bodies change with increasing tide, lower wave action, or both? Why?

10. How does all that sand moving down the coast get past tidal inlets?

11. Why put jetties in an inlet?

12. Why are inlets generally bad places to put hotels?

13. How does changing inlet type affect stability of the shoreline on either side (wave- versus tide-dominated)?

14. How do flood- and ebb-tidal deltas change as we go from a wave- to a tide-dominated system?

15. Where would you expect to see wave-versus tide-dominated tidal inlets between Cape Hatteras and Cape Canaveral?

16. How do coastal sand bodies change as you go from a microtidal area top a macrotidal area? Why?

17. What is the distinction of a coastal classification based on microtidal versus macrotidal differ from one based on wave versus tide dominance?

18. What characteristics would you look for in the fossil record to identify coastal sand dunes?

19. How do coastal dunes form?

20. What is the relationship between coastal dunes and sea level?

21. What is the role of sand dunes along the coast? How do they relate to the erodability of a stretch of coastline?

22. What development practices relative to dunes might increase the erodability of a beach?

23. Describe what Francis Shepard used to call the Summer-Winter Beach Cycle.

24. What will determine where a nearshore bar will form as sand is eroded off the beach?

25. Describe the process of beach recovery after a storm passes.

26. What is a ridge-and-runnel system and how does it relate to all of this?

27. Sketch the sedimentary structures associated with a beach in cross section after storm recovery.

28. How will the changes in a wave- versus tide-dominate beach/inlet system relate to the preservability of barrier-island-related features in the rock record?

29. Make sure you are comfortable with those pesky transgression and regression diagrams. Think about how the preserved facies might change during a transgression versus a regression and in a wave- versus tide-dominated system.

30. Discuss the factors responsible for the change from a classic “birdsfoot” delta (e.g. the Mississippi River) to a cuspate delta (e.g., the Nile) to a tide-dominated delta (e.g. the Ganges River Delta).

31. Why are the sandstones in northern Ohio thickest just west of Oberlin?

32. How can tectonics relate to the importance of deltas along a coastline?

33. Describe the large-scale depositional processes associated with delta deposition. How do they relate to what we saw in the Amherst Quarry and Old Woman Creek Gorge?

34. What is a reef? What function does it have biologically? Physically?

35. What is the relationship between light, bepth and coar zones?

36. Discuss Darwin's use of spatial change as a proxy for temporal evolution of fringing reefs, barrier reefs and atolls.

37. Why would a reef "give up"? How does this relate to all this transgression/regression stuff we've been discussing?

38. How might Momo sapiens push the reef over the edge? i.e., how might we be responsible for coral reefs lagging behind rising sea level in the future?

39. Why care?

40. What features are characteristic of glacial coasts? How do they form?

41. How are glaciers relaterd to the formation of the Norwegian coast, versus the Main Coast, versus the southern Massachusetts/New York coast?

42. What is the origin of Cape Cod? How about Providence Spit along its northernmost end?

43. What is a fjord and how does it relate to glaciation?

44. What are beach ridges and how do they form?

45. Why did Lake Erie originally drain down the Mississippi River? What changed this? What was the effect on Lake Erie water levels?

46. What is post-glacial rebound? How does it relate to Lake levels in Lake Erie over the past 10,000 years?

47. What priorities would you use in defending against an oil spill on Lake Erie?

48. I wouldn't be surprised to see a "spill scenario" type question on the test (NOT Lake Erie).

49. Why does the sand move to the west near Old Woman Creek, but to the east near the eastern end of the lake?