Zap Directions:

For each question your team answers correctly, you will receive one point and will choose a card
numbered 1-16. From the cards you may receive additional points, take points from another
team, or switch scores. When another team or yourself is zapped from a card, it means that you
lose one point.
Zap Questions
Day 1
1. What three provinces have we discussed and/or read about today?
The Basin and Range, Rocky Mountain, and Colorado plateau provinces
2. What are the three geologic eras in order from youngest to oldest?
Cenozoic, Mesozoic, and Paleozoic
3. What two plates converged to form the Rocky Mountains?
Farallon and North American Plate
4. What is magma?
A hot mixture of solid and somewhat melted rock.
5. How were the Rocky Mountains formed during Sevier Orogeny (be specific!)?
Compression forces (can say folding or faulting or convergent boundary). The Farralon plate
converged with the North American plate and was subducted.
6. What is a thrust fault?
A fracture in the crust formed by compression where the hanging wall containing older rock is
faulted up above the younger rock in the footwall.
7. What is the fault between the Rocky Mountain and Basin & Range Provinces?
Wasatch Fault
8. What is a normal fault?
A fracture in the Earths crust where the hanging wall containing younger rock faulted down
against older rock in the foot wall.
9. What characterized the Basin & Range Province?
A series of basins and long, skinny mountain ranges
10. Did compression or extension form the mountains of the Basin and Range Province?
Extension
11. What are oolites?
Small balls of calcium carbonate.

12. What is the Pleistocene and describe its climate?

It is commonly called the Ice Age. If was a time when glaciers forms on the north and south
poles and in the mountains. It generally had cooler and wetter climate.
13. What is a fault scarp?
A steeply sloped break in the surface of the ground created by the movement of a fault.
14. How did wave-cut terraces form in Lake Bonneville?
When Lake Bonneville was forming, there were wet and dry years, which caused variations in
the water level. During years when the water level was stable, terraces (or flat benches) formed
from wave action (erosion and deposition) along the shore.
15. What is a moraine?
A ridge of sediment that was transported and deposited by a glacier.
16. What shape do we say glacial valleys, or basins, have?
U-shaped
Day 2
1. What is a fault scarp?
A steeply sloped break in the surface of the ground created by the movement of a fault.
2. How do we know that Lake Bonneville had period of time where the water level was constant?
The wave-cut terraces
3. Why did the wave-cut terraces and Antelope Island rise up after water levels in Lake
Bonneville dropped from the flood?
Isostasy (large areas of crust move up or down because of large loads such as water have been
removed or added).
4. How did Cottonwood Canyon form and how can you tell?
By a glacier because it is U-shaped. Also, there is a glacial moraine
5. What is an earthquake?
The release of energy from the displacement of a fault.
6. Why are Precambrian mudstones above Paleozoic limestone in Little Cottonwood Canyon?
This is a thrust fault where the older rocks are thrust over younger rocks.
7. What is uniformitarianism?
The present if the key to the past
8. What is the law of superposition?
Younger rocks overlie older rocks.
9. What is the law of horizontality?
Most sediments are deposited in nearly horizontal layers.

10. How can depositional environments be classified?

On the basis of the processes present and the characteristics of the sedimentary deposits found
there.
11. What is the law of lateral continuity?
Many sedimentary deposits are continuous over large areas.
12. How geologic feature is the Cretaceous Interior Sesway?
Foreland basin
13. What is a foreland basin and what geologic process causes its formation?
A large depression cause by the mass of a mountain range flexing down the adjacent crust
(because of isostasy)
14. What is a conflomerate?
Sedimentary rock or sandstone that contains pebbles or coarser clasts.
15. What characterized the Colorado Plateau Province?
A high plateau formed by vertical uplift that has horizontal sedimentary layers with few faults or
folds.
16. What were the two types of orogonies that formed the Rocky mountains?
Sevier and Laramide
Day 3
1. What is mass wasting?
The downslope movement of rock, sediment, soil, or snow due to gravity
2. When were the Navajo Sandstone formations formed?
Jurassic
3. What does it means when sediments are well sorted?
The sediments are uniform in size
4. What law allows us to use the rock layers to say that during the Jurassic, this part of Utah went
from sand dune to coastal mudflat to a shallow marine environment?
Law of superposition
5. What is a Brunton compass used for?
To measure the trend of the line with respect to north and the dip.
6. Name at least two great changes that occurred in the Western US during the Cenozoic.
1. Sevier Orogeny Ended
2. The Cretaceous Interior Seaway ceased being an arm of the ocean
3. Laramide Orogeny began

4. Most dinosaurs became extinct

5. Large lake basins formed in Utah and Wyoming
7. When does Great Salt Lake have salty water (this is the same process that happened in the
Green River Lakes)?
When there is a drier climate and more evaporation
8. What is a key clue to finding a swamp or marsh in the fossil record?
Many dead plants!
9. How can dead plants become coal?
Deep burial of the dead plants subjects them to heat and pressure which compresses the dead
plants. Water is expelled and there are chemical changes in the hydrocarbons which turn the plant
material into peat, then to lignite, then to coal.
10. What is oil shale?
Fine-grained sedimentary rock that contains so much organic material that it can be treated to
produce liquid hydrocarbons
11. Where is there a large resoivoir of hydrocarbon resources that occur as oil shale?
Green River Formation
12. What is the difference between the where the mountains are formed by sevier and laramide
orogeny?
Sevier- Occur closer to the Pacific Ocean. Deep plunging farallon subduction.
Laramide- Occur toward the interior of the North American plate (farther from the convergent
margin). Shallow plunging farallon subduction.
13. What mountain ranges were formed by Laramide orogeny?
Uinta and Wind River Ranges
14. What types of faults are common for Sevier orogeny but NOT Laramide orogeny?
Thrust faults (like in little cottonwood canyon)
15. What is a major distinction between dinosaurs and reptiles?
Legs of dinosaurs extend below the body. Reptile extend to the side of the body.
16. Where there dinosaurs during the Cenozoic?
Yes! Avian dinosaurs
Day 4
1. What two mountain ranges were produced by Laramid orogeny?
Uinta and Wind River Mountains

2. Why are the sedimentary layers in Dinosaur National Monument tilted?

Precambrian rock below the younger sedimentary rock layers was pushed up (uplifted) over the
younger rock, so the younger rock was pushed aside, tilted, and folded during Laramide
Orogeny.
3. What is the difference between an anticline and a syncline?
An anticline is up-folded rock. A syncline is down-folded rock.
4. How did the dinosaur skeletons end up at the Morrison Formation?
Deposition (The Morrison Formation is a river deposit)
5. As we walked down in elevation on the Fossil Discovery Trail, did the rocks get older or
younger?
Younger
6. Which site is older, the Jurassic Morrison Formation or the Cretaceous Mountain Formation?
Jurassic Morrison Formation
7. What do the marine sandstones at the Cretaceous Mountain Formation tell us?
Sea levels were rising in this area during the Cretaceous and this is the Cretaceous Interior
Seaway
8. Name at least one effect of the Farallon plate subducting at a shallower angle.
1. Change from Sevier to Laramide orogeny
2. Mountain building farther interior of the North American Plate (Farther from
convergent margin)
3. A change from low-angle (nearly horizontal) thrust faults to steeper faults reaching the
Precambrian
9. What energy source is present in the Green River Formation
Liquid Hydrocarbons
10. Why dont we use liquid hydrocarbons as a major source of energy?
We do not currently have a cost-effective way to remove the hydrocarbons from the oil shale.
11. Are the Uinta Mountains an anticline or syncline?
Anticline
12. What are the directions of the faults of the Rocky Mountains? The Uinta Mountains?
North-South; East-West
13. What is the drainage divide called that was a milestone for those traveling west on the
Oregon Trail?
Continental Divide

14. What geologic time includes the formation of the Earth?

Precambrian
15. What is the difference between the where the mountains are formed by sevier and laramide
orogeny?
Sevier- Occur closer to the Pacific Ocean. Deep plunging farallon subduction.
Laramide- Occur toward the interior of the North American plate (farther from the convergent
margin). Shallow plunging farallon subduction.
16. What is a major distinction between dinosaurs and reptiles?
Legs of dinosaurs extend below the body. Reptile extend to the side of the body.
Day 5
1. What is an extensional fault weve seen outside of the Basin and Range Province?
Teton Fault
2. What geologic landform extends over almost half of Yellowstone National Park?
The Yellowstone Caldera
3. What 3 things are required for hydrothermal vents to form?
1. Heat (magma body)
2. Water (rain, snow, and groundwater)
3. Plumbing (interconnected cracks and fracture in the rock)
4. What hydrothermal feature does not have any constrictions in the plumbing system?
Hot Spring
5. Why does superheated water not boil?
The pressure from the overlying water and rock keep it from boiling.
6. Why do mudpots and fumeroles not develop into hot springs?
They have too little water (also they are above the water table)
7. You saw or will see many different colors at the hydrothermal features. What are the different
colors due to?
Different types of microbes, sulfur (yellow), and iron (red)
May also say the ratio of chlorophyll and carotenoids or temperature of the water
8. How did the Teton Mountain Range form?
Extension forces about 10 mya
9. What was the major force of erosion and deposition in the Grand Teton Range (hint: think
about Cascade Canyon)?
Glaciers

10. Why is the geyser called Old Faithful?

It erupts on a cycle of about 85 minutes.
11. Why is there a volcano in Yellowstone when it is inland on the North American Plate?
It is over a hot spot
12. What is produced in a hydrothermal system when there a high amount of silica? Limestone?
1. Sinter
2. Travertine
13. What will happen to a fumerole or mud pot it the water table rose?
It would most likely turn into a hot spring?
14. What type of fault is the Teton Fault?
Normal fault
15. Name at least two processes that build up the Earths crust
1. Volcanism
2. Faulting
3. Deposition
16. Name at least two processes that tear down the surface of the Earth (You may use examples
from our trip)
1. Faulting
2. Erosion (water, wind, and ice)
3. Glaciers (erosion)
4. Snake River
Day 6
1. What causes the colors of the Grand Prismatic Spring?
Microbes and microbial mats
2. What are creates U-shaped valleys? V-shaped valleys?
1. Glaciers
2. Erosion by a river
3. What is produced in a hydrothermal system when there a high amount of silica? Limestone?
1. Sinter
2. Travertine
4. What are the three components of volcanic ash?
Small particles of rock, volcanic glass, and minerals

5. What is a hot spot?

An area in the mantle that generates magma in the shallow crust that on occasion bursts out in
volcanic eruptions
6. Where are geyser basins?
At fractures and faults in the crust
7. What two things can change the locations of hydrothermal features?
Earthquakes and sinter build-up
8. How did Porcelain Basin get its name?
The white sinter deposition that it is famous for
9. Before there was a waterfall in the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone, what was there and how do
you know?
Hydrothermal features because of the faults and fractures, colors of the rocks, altered rocks
10. What is a mammoth hot spring famous for and why does it have that feature?
Travertine because it is rich in limestone
11. Because limestone around hydrothermal features creates travertine, what mineral can we
assume limestone is rich in?
Calcium or calcium carbonate
12. Name the two places that we have seen glacial valleys.
Little Cottonwood canyon and the Teton range
13. Name at least two geysers we saw
Norris Geyser Basin
Old Faithful
Midway Geyser Basin
14. If you see dead trees near a geyser, what does this indicate?
The hydrothermal conditions are shifting (could be due to sinter build up or earthquakes that
have changed faults or fractures/path of hot water)
15. Why is there a volcano in Yellowstone when it is inland on the North American Plate?
It is over a hot spot
16. When is travertine deposited (what conditions)?
Limestone around hydrothermal feature
Pressure and temperature decrease and result in oversaturation in calcium carbonate, so the
calcium carbonate precipitates as travertine