1. There are three types of plate boundaries (divergent is one of them.) Explain each plate boundary and give specific examples of places on Earth where we see these types of boundaries.

2. Tornadoes are violent and quite unpredictable, while hurricanes are large and slow-moving but more destructive. Use library and Internet resources to find the similarities and differences between these types of storms. Please answer at least three of the following six questions:

1) Where do these two storm types occur most often, and how frequently do they occur?

2) In the USA, what regions are most at risk, why?

3) On the world scale, where are conditions favorable for each type of storm? What are the conditions for their creation?

4) On what basis is the intensity of tornadoes or hurricanes rated, and how is their strength actually measured?

5) When and where were the most intense cases of each?

6) How bad are losses of life and property, and what are the most common causes of such loss – fire? winds? flooding? How does one protect self and property from either type of storm?

Consider reading accounts of specific storms; what might one expect to happen in the path of a severe hurricane or a severe tornado?

Webliography:

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration http://www.lib.noaa.gov/researchtools/subjectguides/wind/education.html

The Weather Channel www.weather.com

3. When Alfred Wegener argued early last century that all continents had once been connected by had cracked and moved part, he had little to support his theory besides the shape of the continents. Today, much evidence supports the theory of continental drift, not the least of which is an accurate measurement of increasing or decreasing distances between fixed points on various plates. Not only are horizontal movements on the order of centimeters per year measureable with modern equipment, but the much slower lifting of mountains is also measured with great accuracy.

What modern equipment is capable of making such fine measurements on shifting surfaces, and when was it developed? When a plate is said to move northeast at one inch per year, to what is the movement relative? Besides these readings, what other evidence have scientists found that all the Earth’s landmasses were once connected? And which mountain ranges are still being formed, which are eroding, and when will the Great Rift Valley – a divergent fault – become an inland sea?

4. What is the significance of the age of the Earth for our understanding the processes that shape its surface?

5. dentify and describe the physical processes that shape the Earth’s surface. (Define exogenic and endogenic processes in your own words and give examples of each.)