AP Environmental Science : Change Due to Natural Events
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Example Questions
Example Question #1 : Ecological Change
Which type of erosion is caused by steady, fast flow of running water?
Gully erosion
Rill erosion
Splash erosion
Sheet erosion
Gully erosion
All of these are caused by water in some way, however, gully erosion is due to steady and fast-flowing streams; the Grand Canyon is an excellent example of the effect of gully erosion. Splash erosion is the first step in erosion from water, and involves the breakage of soil via the impact between soil and a raindrop. It is often a precursor for other types of erosion since it loosens soil. Sheet erosion involves evenly removing a certain number of layers of material due to regular water patterns. Rill erosion is a result of small, well-defined paths of water known as rills, that flow downhill after rainfall.
Example Question #2 : Change Due To Natural Events
Climatologists work to understand what factors affect climate throughout geological time. Scientists have proposed many theories to explain complex climatic events. Which of the following theories explains how shift’s in Earth’s orbit every 100,000 years can trigger ice ages?
Hadley cells
El Nino cycles
Milankovitch cycles
La Nina cycles
Milankovitch cycles
The correct response is Milankovitch cycles. This theory describes how the orbit, tilt, and axis of the Earth operate on a 100,000 year cycle that cause the Earth to be further from the sun. As the Earth gets farther from the sun, it can trigger an ice age. The theory is aptly named after the man who discovered it. The El Nino and La Nina events occur on a much shorter time scale and have nothing to do with ice ages.
Example Question #3 : Change Due To Natural Events
In the past 500 million years, there have been __________ mass extinctions.
10
5
2
50
5
Today, 99.9% of all species that have ever existed on Earth are extinct. We are currently in the middle of the 6th mass extinction. The dinosaurs went extinct during the 5th, the Cretaceous, about 65 million years ago.
Example Question #2 : Ecological Change
The Wallace Line is generally cited as evidence of which of the following?
Asteroid impact
Speciation
Plate tectonics
Change in sea levels
Natural Selection
Change in sea levels
The Wallace Line, named for Alfred Russel Wallace, is a boundary that separates Asia and Australia. Wallace noticed that the some of the islands in this region contained species common to Australia and some contained species common to Asia, none of which would have crossed the open water in between the continents. Wallace correctly reasoned that this meant that sea levels were once much lower, an artifact of the last glacial maximum.
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