OCEANOGRAPHY FINAL EXAM QUESTIONS ANSWERED CORRECTLY LATEST UPDATE 2026

OCEANOGRAPHY FINAL EXAM QUESTIONS ANSWERED CORRECTLY LATEST UPDATE 2026 71% - Answers What percent of the Earth's surface is covered by oceans? 78% nitrogen, 21% oxygen - Answers What are the two most abundant gases in the atmosphere? What is the percentage of each by volume? Infiltration - Answers Water moves from surface of Earth into ground Glacial ice, Antarctica, Greenland - Answers What is the 2nd largest reservoir in the hydrosphere, and where is it located? Continental crust - Answers Mostly granitic, thicker and less dense Oceanic crust - Answers Mostly basalt, is thinner and denser Seafloor spreading - Answers Movement of the seafloor away from a mid-ocean ridge Convection in the Earth's mantle - Answers What is the driving force behind continental drift? Alfred Wegener and Frank B. Taylor - Answers Who proposed the idea of continental drift? Oceanic crust - Answers What type of lithosphere is created at a divergent plate boundary? Pillow basalt - Answers Lava that cools rapidly on the ocean floor Black smoker - Answers Substance that precipitates from hydrothermal vent waters; accumulate as dark clouds and accumulate in the form of conical chimneys Mid-Atlantic Ridge - Answers What is an example of a divergent plate boundary? Age increases, depth increases, heat flow from mantle decreases - Answers What happens to the age of the ocean floor, the depth, and the heat flow from the mantle as you move away from a mid-ocean ridge? Almost ten times faster - Answers How fast is the spreading rate of the East Pacific Rise compared to the Mid-Atlantic Ridge? Melting of subducting plates - Answers How does an island arc form? Where two colliding plates meet - Answers Where does an oceanic trench develop? Aleutian Islands, Japan - Answers What are two examples of oceanic-oceanic convergent plate boundaries? Iron and magnesium - Answers What two metals increase the density of the oceanic plate? Volcanic activity and subduction - Answers How does a continental arc form? Andes Mountains, Cascades - Answers What are two examples of an oceanic-continental convergent plate boundary? Himalayas - Answers What is an example of a continental-continental convergent plate boundary? San Andreas Fault - Answers What is an example of a transform plate boundary? All of them - Answers Which types of plate boundaries are associated with earthquakes? Transform plate boundary, continental-continental convergent plate boundary - Answers What type of plate boundaries are not associated with volcanoes? 86% - Answers In any sample of seawater, from anywhere in the world, what % of the salt accounts for sodium chloride? Quartz - Answers What is the principle component of most beach sand? Diatoms and radiolarians - Answers Which organisms are silica-based? Coccolithophores and foraminifera - Answers Which organisms are calcium carbonate-based? Equatorial latitudes - Answers Where do radiolarian-rich deposits form? Hydrogenous sediment - Answers Sediment precipitated from seawater Manganese nodules - Answers Black nodules containing manganese, copper, iron, cobalt, and nickel Arctic - Answers Where in the ocean would you not find manganese nodules? Oolith - Answers Tiny sphere of calcite that precipitates out of seawater 0.5 to 1.0 mm - Answers How big are ooliths? Tektite - Answers Formed from a rock that was hit by a meteorite, then melted, then cooled back into the rock Neritic - Answers In the continental margin Calcareous ooze - Answers 30% calcareous organisms Foraminifera and coccolithophores - Answers Which organisms make up a calcareous ooze? 4500 m - Answers How deep is the CCD? Siliceous ooze - Answers 30% silica organisms Diatoms and radiolarians - Answers Which organisms make up a siliceous ooze? Siliceous ooze - Answers Which type of ooze is not inhibited by depth? Exclusive economic zone (EEZ) - Answers Offshore zone that can be used exclusively by the country it is closest to; extends 200 nautical miles Reservoir rock - Answers Rock that is less permeable than other rocks such as sandstone; responsible for trapping petroleum Tropic of Cancer - Answers Where is the 90 degree sun angle on the summer solstice? Equator - Answers Where is the 90 degree sun angle on the spring equinox? Tropic of Capricorn - Answers Where is the 90 degree sun angle on the winter solstice? Equator - Answers Where is the 90 degree sun angle on the autumnal equinox? 23.5 degrees - Answers What is the tilt of the earth? 100-200 m - Answers How deep is the photic zone? Carbon dioxide and methane - Answers What are the common greenhouse gases? Sea breeze - Answers Develops during daylight hours and blows inland from the ocean in response to differential heating of land and sea Land breeze - Answers At night, land becomes relatively colder than the sea surface; circulation reverses and a breeze blows offshore ITCZ - Answers Characterized by lots of rain and no wind