Nautical Sciences Unit 2, Ch 3: Seawater: Its Makeup and Movements
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Who is regarded as the founder of modern oceanography?
Matthew Fontaine Maury
Townshend Cromwell
Dr. John Swallow
Zuyder Zee
Jacques Cousteau
What is considered to be the purest natural source of water?
Snow
Rain
Spring Water
Well Water
Sea Water
How is water significantly different than most other materials when heated and cooled?
It contracts until it's close to freezing then expands rapidly.
It expands as it is heated and contracts as it is cooled.
It expands until it's close to freezing, then contracts rapidly.
Heat and cold have no effect on the volume of water.
It expands as it nears freezing but then contracts rapidly when frozen.
What is the only other known material that has the ability to store more heat than water?
Ammonia
Iron
Calcium sulfate
Fluorine
Topsoil
Why is it that in the winter time, it tends to be warmer near the sea coast and colder farther inland?
Because water retains heat better than land.
Because cold air masses and low pressure areas are more easily supported over land than water.
Because the sun reflects more brightly off of the water than the land.
The sea coast is actually colder than the inland lands in the winter.
Because land retains heat better than water.
How is it possible to compress water?
Under extreme pressure, such as great ocean depths or under laboratory conditions
Water will compress when frozen.
You can compress it by mixing it with ammonia.
You cannot compress water.
Water will compress when heated to extreme temperatures.
Which of the following statements about water is true?
Sound travels faster in water than air and increases with temperature and salinity.
Sound travels slower in water than air and increases with temperature and salinity.
Sound travels faster in water than air and decreases with temperature and salinity.
Sound travels slower in water than air and decreases with temperature and salinity.
The speed of sound does not vary between water or air.
What is the most important factor affecting the velocity of sound in the water?
Temperature
Salinity
Pressure
The volume of the sound
The pitch and tone of the sound.
What percentage of sea water is made up of pure water?
95%
85%
75%
50%
87%
Approximately how many elements are known to exist in seawater?
80
15
42
33
67
What bodies of seawater tend to have the highest concentrations of salt?
Land-locked lakes
The Mediterranean and Red Seas
The open oceans
Gulfs and bays
Lagoons
How has the amount of salts in the sea changed over the past few millions of years?
It has remained fairly stable over that time.
The seas were much more salty millions of years ago.
The seas were much less salty millions of years ago.
The seas were "salt-free" millions of years ago.
Seas and oceans are fairly new features and haven't been around for millions of years.
Why are tiny dust and ash nuclei in the atmosphere important?
They allow evaporated water to form droplets and grow until they fall as rain back to the surface of the earth.
They prevent more water vapor from being evaporated and therefore prevent the oceans from drying up.
They reflect sunlight down to the oceans and warm up the waters.
They do not have a significant importance in regards to weather or the oceans.
They store water vapor for long periods of time in the upper atmosphere and by doing so act as a warming blanket for the earth.
What is the process of evaporation, condensation and return of water to the sea by way of precipitation called?
The hydrologic cycle.
The transpiration process.
The rainfall cycle.
The humidity effect.
The moisture transportation cycle.
Plants on land add to the amount of water vapor entering the air by what process?
The transpiration process
The hydrologic cycle
Photosynthesis
Ambient hydration
The irrigation process
Which of the following minerals is found in the greatest quantity in seawater?
Sodium chloride
Calcium sulfate
Bromine
Boron
Silver
Which of the following minerals is NOT found in seawater?
Aluminum
Rubidium
Strontium
Sodium chloride
Arsenic
Only magnesium and bromine are currently extracted commercially from ocean water. Why only these two minerals?
Because it is easier to get the other minerals from mines on land.
Because it is not possible to extract the other minerals.
Because these are the only two minerals found in seawater.
Because they collect at the bottom of the ocean naturally and are easy to collect.
Because there is concern that extracting other minerals would result in damage to life in the oceans.
What is the normal worldwide range of temperature (Fahrenheit) of upper ocean water?
32 degrees to 85 degrees
0 degrees to 26 degrees
28 degrees to 90 degrees
32 degrees to 90 degrees
36 degrees to 85 degrees
Which of the following is true concerning the concentration of salt in seawater?
The more salt content, the lower it's freezing point.
The more salt content, the higher it's freezing point.
The more salt content, the more quickly objects will sink.
The concentration of salt in seawater has varied widely over the past 10,000 years.
Colder water tends to be saltier than warm water.
What instrument is used on most Navy combatants to monitoring seawater temperature at various depths?
A bathythermograph
A Nansen bottle
A Forward Looking Infrared Receiver (FLIR)
A fathometer
A echo sounder
What instruments are used to return samples of seawater taken from various depths of the ocean?
Nansen Bottles
Bathythermographs
Fathometers
Piston corers
Swallow buoys
What is the color of most of the world's seawater?
Seawater is colorless
Light Green
Blue
Gray
Dark Green
What causes the Red Sea to appear red?
Red phytoplankton in the water.
Red clay silt carried into it by the rivers of northern China.
Large amounts of red-tinted krill and shrimp in these waters.
The Red Sea does not appear red.
Copper deposits on the bottom of the Red Sea.
The Yellow Sea appears yellow in color because of yellow clay silt carried into it by the rivers of what country?
China
Somalia
Kuwait
Japan
Pakistan
Which color of light penetrates the farthest into ocean water?
Blue
Red
Yellow
They all penetrate ocean water evenly.
Green
What is the name of the zone of the ocean between 260 and 566 feet where only very dark violet light is able to reach.
The twilight zone
The lighted zone
The dark zone
The violet zone
The continental slope
Which zone of the ocean has no light at all except that which is created by an object or animal?
The dark zone
The dead zone
The twilight zone
The lighted zone
The omega zone
What is the most common cause of ordinary sea waves?
Wind
Earthquakes
Solar flares
Submarine landslides
Upwelling
What is the name of a long, smooth wave coming from a distant storm center?
Swell
Pitch
Roll
Crest
Trough
Wave height on the open ocean depends on three main factors: Wind speed, duration of the wind, and what?
Length of the fetch
Depth of the water
Salinity of the water
Temperature of the water
The spacing of the waves
Whitecaps will begin to form at about what wind speed?
13 knots
25 knots
8 knots
50 knots
20 knots
What is the "period" of a wave?
The length of time it takes for complete wave to pass a given point.
The horizontal distance between two successive crests.
The vertical distance between the crest and the trough.
The length of time between the crest and the trough.
The count of the number of waves that pass by a point in a minute.
Which type of breaker occurs where there is a mild and gradual shape to the beach?
Spilling breaker
Plunging breaker
Surging breaker
Rolling breaker
Sloping breaker
What type of breakers result when waves come in to a very steep bottom slope with sudden rock formations?
Surging breakers
Spilling breakers
Plunging breakers
Rolling breakers
Heaving breakers
By current estimates, how much of the shoreline of the United States is being worn away each year?
One foot
One mile
50 yards
100 yards
One yard
What surf height is considered to be the critical height for normal amphibious landings on an average beach?
Four feet
Ten feet
Two feet
Six feet
12 feet
What is the term used to describe when a part of a line of waves changes direction or bends because of shallower water?
Refraction
Reflection
Surge barrier
Breakwater
Groins
What is the most important ocean current affecting the United States?
The Gulf Stream
The North Equatorial Current
The North Atlantic Drift
The Prevailing Westerlies
The Polar Northeasterlies
Where does the Sargasso Sea lie?
In the North Atlantic Ocean off of the southeastern U.S. coast.
In the Pacific Ocean, off of the southwestern U.S. coast.
In the Indian Ocean, between Pakistan and India.
In the Arctic Ocean, off the coast of Russia.
In the Southern Atlantic Ocean, off of Brazil.
What U.S. scientist discovered in 1952 that near the equator, the deepest water was moving opposite from the surface water flow?
Townsend Cromwell
Henry Stommel
Dr. John Swallow
Sir Isaac Newton
Matthew Fontaine Maury
Who was the oceanographer who theorized in 1955 that a countercurrent flowed beneath the Gulf Stream?
Henry Stommel
Townsend Cromwell
Dr. John Swallow
Sir Isaac Newton
Matthew Fontaine Maury
What is the name of the piece of oceanographic equipment designed to free-float while remaining at any chosen depth?
The Swallow Buoy
The Nansen Bottle
The Bathythermograph
The Hovercraft
The Coriolis Broach
What is the primary cause of the rise and fall of ocean tides?
The Moon's gravity.
The Sun's gravity.
Countercurrents within the deep oceans.
The flow of Magma within the outer mantle of the earth.
The rotation of the earth and the resultant Coriolis effect.
Why is the tidal effect caused by the Sun only two-fifths as strong as that caused by the Moon?
Because the Sun is 390 times farther away than the Moon.
Because the orbit of the Earth counters some of the gravitational pull of the Sun.
Because the Moon is larger than the Sun.
Because the Moon is made of rock and metal while the Sun is a ball of burning gas.
Because sunlight can only penetrate the first 200 meters of the oceans.
When do the tides have the highest range?
New and Full Moons
New Moon only
Full Moon only
The New Moon and the first Quarter Moon
The Full Moon and the first Quarter Moon
What is a neap tide?
A period when there is the least difference between high and low tides.
A period when there is the most difference between high and low tides.
A period when there is no difference between high and low tides.
A tide that fails to rise or fall more than one foot.
A tide that fails to rise or fall more than three feet.
What are the definitions of the ebb and the flood of a tide?
The ebb is the flow away from shore and the flood is the flow toward shore.
The ebb is the flow towards the shore and the flood is the flow away from shore.
The ebb is the highest point of tide and the flood is the lowest point.
The ebb is the lowest point of a tide and the flood is the highest.
These terms refer to ocean currents and not to tides.
Which of the following areas has relatively low tides?
The Mediterranean Sea
Mont-St-Michel, France
The Bay of Fundy
Alaska
Inchon, Korea
Which of the rivers below has the highest tidal bores in the world?
The Amazon River
The Columbia River
The Mississippi River
The Nile River
The Rhone River
Which country has built the world's most highly successful tidal energy plant?