Homework

Assignments

 The Marine Environment

Ocea 101, Winter 2007

Homework Assignments: Weekly assignments will be given out in the lectures. These will be turned in during the assigned Discussion Sections, and gone over by the TA. If you do not turn it in at your assigned discussion section, you will NOT be able to make it up without the consent of the instructor.

2007

Homework Assignment #1. Due in Discussion Sections week of January 15 2007. PDF

Homework Assignment #2. Due in Discussion Sections week of January 22 2007. PDF

Homework Assignment #3. Due in Discussion Sections week of January 29 2007. PDF

Practice Exam #1. PDF

Homework Assignment #4. Due in Discussion Sections week of February 12 2007. PDF

Homework Assignment #5. Due in Discussion Sections week of February 21 2007. PDF

Practice Exam #2. PDF

Homework Assignment #6. Due in Discussion Sections week of March 7 2007. PDF

Practice Exam #3. PDF

NOTE: These are the homework problems from prior years, and are provided for your benefit. Homework for 2007 may or may not be the same. These questions are a good place to start reviewing for the exams.

2006

Homework Assignment #1. Due in Discussion Sections week of January 17 2006. PDF

Homework Assignment #2. Due in Discussion Sections week of January 24 2006. PDF

Homework Assignment #3. Due in Discussion Sections week of January 31 2006. PDF

Homework Assignment #4. Due in Discussion Sections week of February 14 2006. PDF

Homework Assignment #5. Due in Discussion Sections week of February 21 2006. PDF

2005

Homework Assignment #1. Due in Discussion Sections week of January 17 2005. PDF

Homework Assignment #2. Due in Discussion Sections week of January 24 2005. PDF

Homework Assignment #3. Due in Discussion Sections week of February 7 2005. PDF

Homework Assignment #4. Due in Discussion Sections week of February 14 2005. PDF

Homework Assignment #5. Due in Discussion Sections week of March 2 2005. PDF

Homework Assignment #6. Due in CLASS Friday March 10, 2005. PDF

2004

Homework Assignment #1. Due in Discussion Sections week of January 12 2004. PDF

Homework Assignment #2. Due in Discussion Sections week of January 27 2004. PDF

Homework Assignment #3. Due in Discussion Sections week of February 9 2004. PDF

(you will need to get the Editorial from your TA)

Homework Assignment #4. Due in Class February 18 2004. PDF

Homework Assignment #5. Due in Sections March 8-12 2004. PDF

Exam 2 from 2003. PDF

Exam 3 from 2003. PDF

Example short answer/essay questions PDF

2003

Homework Assignment #1. Due in Discussion Sections. PDF

Homework Assignment #2. Due in Discussion Sections. PDF

Homework Assignment #5. Due in Discussion Sections. PDF

2002

Homework Assignment #1. Due in Discussion Sections.

Click HERE to get the Homework in PDF format.

Click HERE to get the Homework in PDF format.

Click HERE to get the Homework in PDF format.

2001

Homework Assignment #1.

1) Many people know about the voyage of the HMS Beagle, on which Charles Darwin was the ship's naturalist. How come we consider the HMS Challenger expedition to be the first modern oceanographic expedition, and not the voyage of the Beagle?

2) You're lost at sea, with nothing but a radio, a watch, and an astrolabe (for measuring the position of the sun and stars). You measure the position of the North Star at night, and find that it is half way between the horizon and directly overhead. The next day at local noon, you note that your watch (which is set to Greenwich Mean Time) says it is 2:00 AM. You can now radio the Coast Guard and tell them where you are.where are you? Please show your work, and give your position in degrees Latitude and Longitude. (HINT: see Chapter 1 and Appendix II).

3) If we found another planet between Earth and Mercury, would you expect it to have an atmosphere? Why or why not?

Homework Assignment #2

1) Where are the youngest rocks in the oceanic crust? The oldest rocks? Where would you expect to find the oldest rock on planet Earth?

2) What is the age of a rock that has a U235 to Pb207 ratio of 1 to 3?

3) Earth is the only planet we know of that has plate tectonics. If you were looking for evidence of plate tectonics on Mars, what would you look for? (Assume you can collect satellite and telescope data, and can collect rocks from a few locations using a lander).

4) In some ocean sediments, there are regions that have no carbonates on the surface (in contact with seawater), but if we take a sediment core, we find that there are carbonates at depth. Why does this occur?

Homework Assignment #3

1) There's a saying that "climate is what you expect, weather is what you get". What does that mean?

2) What would happen to California's currents and weather patterns if the Earth were to rotate in the other direction?

3) Why is the Atlantic Ocean much saltier than the Pacific Ocean?

4) The Intertropical Convergence Zone (essentially the equator) are sometimes called "the doldrums". Why?

1) Draw a vertical profile of temperature for Monterey Bay during a "normal" year and during an El Niño year such as 1998. You can put both of the profiles on the same graph, or make two separate graphs. Label the axes with the appropriate units.

2) Scientists think we just "switched" from a warm-dry to a cool-wet phase of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation. If you were a salmon fisherman, should you move to Alaska or stay in California? Why? (HINT: during the 1997-98 El Niño, there were a lot of tuna, but very few salmon, in Monterey Bay).

3) A tsunami is considered to be a shallow-water wave, even though it will travel across the entire Pacific basin. If L=200 km and V=700 km/h for a tsunami, show mathematically why it's considered to be shallow (HINT: you'll have to know the average ocean depth).

4) The Gulf Stream flows northward along the east coast of the U.S. Ekman transport should be moving it to the right (towards the gyre center), but we know that the Gulf Stream is a warm, narrow, deep current that hugs the coast. Why isn't there upwelling instead of a Gulf Stream?

1) Tides are most affected by the moon, which is very close to the Earth, and the sun, which is much further away, but very massive. Using the information below, what would be the effect (either the net tidal force, or a percentage of the moon's force) if Mars, Jupiter, Saturn and the sun all lined up with Earth?
----

Body	Distance from Earth	Mass
Moon	384,835 km	7.3x10^19 metric tons
Earth	--	5.98x10^21 metric tons
Mars	56.3x10^6 km	0.11x Earth
Jupiter	588x10^6 km	318x Earth
Saturn	1.2x10^9 km	95x Earth

2) A Kelvin Wave moves at about 2.5 m/s. How long would it take a Kelvin Wave to propagate across the entire Pacific Basin?

3) Would you expect to find a marine terrace on the east coast of the US? Why or why not?

4) In general, there's more erosion on the Atlantic coast compared to the Pacific coast. Why?

Homework Assignment #6

1) In our discussion of biodiversity, a question from the chapter by Angel was raised: is it better to save one of about 3500-4500 species of phytoplankton, or one of about a million species of green (terrestrial) plants? If you had to save one or the other, which would you choose and why?

2) The classic phytoplankton bloom is the North Atlantic Bloom, which is described in your chapter (it's the Temperate example). There is no spring bloom in the North Pacific, at the same latitude. Based on what you've learned in class, can you explain (or guess) why this is true? HINT: there are physical, biological, chemical, and geological reasons for the differenceit isn't discussed in Chapter 15, but we you should have all of the information you need from class.

3) Based on what we discussed in lecture, would you expect there to ever be a marine biological organism 10-100 times bigger than a blue whale (the largest living organism)? Why or why not?

4) How does size influence marine organisms? Give at least 3 examples.