1. Final examination, Geol. 282 Answer 12 of the 14 questions. All questions have equal value.

There is a page of useful formulas and constants on the last page. You have 3 hours. Calculators are permitted but no reference materials. 1) The Coriolis force is a ctitious force that arises when motion is analyzed in a rotating reference frame. i) Draw diagrams of a rotating turntable and the motion of a ball being thrown straight across the turntable in both an inertial reference frame (looking down on the turntable from above) and in the rotating reference frame. ii) If the turntable is rotating counter-clockwise, which direction is the ball deected in the rotating reference frame? iii) What condition is necessary on the time taken for the ball to cross the turntable and the time for the turntable to rotate on its axis for the Coriolis force to be important? iv) Use your answer to iii to explain why the Coriolis force is important in determining the motion of the uid in Earths outer core but not in the direction that toilets drain?

2) In gure 1, the longitude of the geomagnetic south pole as a function of time is plotted. i) Estimate the slope of this curve. ii) Assuming that the geomagnetic pole will continue to drift at a similar rate, how long will it take the geomagnetic pole to circulate once around the rotation pole? iii) What is the Axial Geocentric Dipole Hypothesis? iv) Over what range of ages of rocks do you need to average in order for the Axial Geocentric Dipole Hypothesis to be valid according to your answer in ii? Explain.

3) The dimensionless number describing the degree of vigor of convection is the Rayleight number, Ra . (1) gT d3 where g is acceleration due to gravity, is the thermal expansivity, T is the temperature dierence across the layer, d is the depth of the layer, is the thermal diusivity and is the kinematic viscosity. Ra =
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Figure 1. gure for question 4 i) Explain in words why increasing g , , and T will increase the vigor of convection (explain each one in turn) ii) Explain in words why increasing and will decrease the vigor of convection. 4) Figure 1 shows a Ridge-Trench-Transform fault triple junction. The ridge is oriented north-south while the transform and trench are trending at 45 degrees to the North West. |A vB | = 8.5 cm/yr while |A vC | = 6cm/yr. a) Draw the velocity diagram for this triple junction. Your diagram can be only roughly to scale and you do not need to calculate |B vC |. b) Show that this triple junction is stable provided that the trench and the fault have the same trend.

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Figure 2. gure for question 4

5) Temperature probes in a borehole measure the temperatures at 125m and 25m depth to be 17.4 Co and 16.2o . The rock at these depths has a thermal conductivity of 3 W/(m K). The equation for heat conduction is q = k dT . dz i) Assuming a linear variation of temperature at these depths and that all heat is carried by conduction, estimate the heat ow in this area. ii) In words, how might hydrothermal circulation aect heat ow estimates?

6) Assuming conservation of angular momentum and that the centripetal acceleration of the moon in its orbit about the Earth is balanced by the gravitational attraction of the Earth, the following equation can be derived. ME Mm (GrL )0.5 = Ltot (2) C + (ME + Mm )0.5

where C is the Earths polar moment of inertia, ME is the mass of the Earth, Mm is the mass of the moon, G is the gravitational constant, and rL is the Earth-moon distance. Substitute in = 2/T (where and T are the angular frequency and period of Earths rotation) and dierentiate this equation with respect to time in order to show that the change in the period of the Earths rotation can be related to the time rate of change of the Earth-Moon distance by (3) T rl ME Ml G0.5 T 2. = t t 4rl0.5 (ME + Mm )0.5 C

Lunar laser ranging measures the change in the Earth-Moon distance to be 3.8 cm . Substitute in this value to get an estimate of the rate at which yr the length of day is increasing. Express your answer in msec/century . 7) Draw a diagram of a strike-slip fault where an earthquake takes place. i) On your diagram indicate the fault plane and the auxiliary plane. ii) Also indicate the quadrants were the rst P wave arrival is positive and those were it is negative. iii) Also indicate possible directions of maximum compression and maximum tension.

8) Consider an Earth with constant P and S wave velocities in the mantle of vp = 10 and vs = 6 km/s. Use radii for the core and Earth of 3480 km and 6370 km. a) Show that a ray that just grazes the core has an incident angle of isz = arcsin(rc /re ) and arrives at the surface at an angular distance = 2 arccos(rc /re ). Rays with incident angles greater than isz will travel through mantle only. b) Show that the path length of rays that through the mantle travel only and do not reect anywhere is d = 2re 1 cos() and that the travel time is tp = d/vm . c) Show that the path length for a PP wave is dd = 23/2 re 1 cos(/2) and that the travel time is dd/vm . 9) Draw a diagram of the Earth including the mantle, outer core and inner core. On your diagram, roughly draw an example of the path of the following seismic rays i) a direct P wave, ii) a PcP wave, iii) a PP wave, iv) a PKP wave, v) a PKiKP wave, vi) a PKIKP wave. Indicate

the epicenter of the earthquake and the point of arrival of the seismic ray at the surface as well as the ray path. Make sure to label each of your seismic rays and that your diagram clearly shows where the rays are reected and refracted.

10) The Roch e limit for the Moon about the Earth is the point where e rm the tidal acceleration due to the Earth on the Moon, at = 2GM , 3 rl is equal to the gravitation acceleration on the surface of the Moon, m ag = Gm . Here, Me is the mass of the Earth, mm is the mass of the 2 rm Moon, rm is the radius of the Moon, and rl is the Earth-Moon distance. i) Show that the Roch e limit for the Moon about the Earth is rl = Me 1/3 rm (2 m ) . m ii) Evaluate this formula given the data on the last page.

11) Lord Kelvin estimated the age of the Earth by assuming that the Earth has been cooling by conduction from an initial temperature of 4144 K. The formula for the temperature gradient at the surface of a cooling innite half-space is dT c (4) |z=0 = T0 . dz kt where T is temperature, z is depth in the Earth, is the density of the Earth materials, c is the heat capacity of Earth materials, k is the thermal conductivity of Earth materials, t is time since cooling began and T0 is the initial temperature. i) Solve the equation above for time, t. | = 30K/km, = 3300kg/m3 , ii) Substitute in Earth-like values, dT dz z =0 c = 1000J/(kgK ), k = 3W/(mK ) and T0 = 4144K to get an estimate for the age of the Earth. Express your answer in years. iii) Name two things that Lord Kelvin did not know about that would change this age estimate. 12) a) Show that for a planet of constant density, the gravitational acceleration as a function of radius is given by g = 4Gr where is the 3 density of the planet. b) Use this expression for g , as well as the hydrostatic formula (see the formula sheet) to show that the pressure at the center of such a planet 2 2G2 rp where rp is the distance from the centre of the planet to the is 3

surface at the rotation pole. 13) Calculate the Euler rotation vector for Eurasia relative to North America. The rotation vectors for Eurasia and North America relative to the Pacic are pac eur = [0.000529, 0.007235, 0.013123] and pac N A = [0.001768 0.0084390.009817]. Also, give the latitude and longitude of the pole of relative rotation. 14) Venus rotates on its axis at roughly the same rate at which it revolves around the Sun but in the opposite direction (i.e. the obliquity angle is roughly 180 degrees). a) Draw a series of diagrams to show that a person living on Venus equator will experience two periods of daylight every time Venus goes around the Sun once. b) Tidal torques due to the Sun are causing Venus rotation rate to change. Qualitatively describe what will happen to Venus rotation rate and its obliquity angle over very long periods of time.

Useful numbers: m3 Gravitational constant: G = 6.67 1011 kgs 2 11 1AU = 1.4959789 10 m radius of the Earth: re = 6.37 106 m radius of the core: rc = 3.48 106 m Earths polar moment of inertia: C = 8.02 1037 kgm2 Mass of Earth: 5.976 1024 kg Mass of the core: 1.95 1024 kg Mass of the Moon: 7.348 1022 kg Distance from the Earth to the moon: 3.84 108 m Radius of Moon 1.738 106 m Formulas Newtons law of gravitation (5) Centrifugal acceleration (6) Hydrostatic equation (7) dp = g dz ac = 2 r g= GMe r2

Polar coordinates (8) (9) Cosine Law (10) Sine Law (11)

x2 + y 2 = arctan( ) z y = arctan( ) x a2 = b2 + c2 2bc cos() sin(a)/A = sin(b)/B