GEOL 276/376 -- Review Material

I. The terrestrial planets.

A. Tools of investigation

1. gravity and topography -- how is correlation/declorrelation of equal potential surface related to lithosphere thickness.

2. seismology -- what are the major structural devisions of the Earth and moon found from seismology.

3. thermal structure -- what are the shapes of the temperature-depth curve in the terrestrial planets. Where do slopes of this curve change and what is the significance of that slope change?

4. bulk composition -- bulk density and moment of inertia. How is moment of inertia measured and what does it tell us about composition? What are the chemical building blocks of the terrestrial planets? How does this compare to solar abundances?

5. Magnetic fields -- what are the minimum requirements for internal generation of a magnetic field? How do the fields of the terrestrial planets compare? What are the origin of the differences in field strengths among them?

B. Comparisons.

1. surfaces of Mercury, Venus, Earth, Moon, and Mars. Tectonic activity and age of last activity. Surficial processes, inclduing erosion and faulting.

2 Atmospheres. How do chemistry, and density of atmospheres of the terrestrial planets roughly compare.

3. Bulk density differences among terrestrials.

4. Which planets are experiencing tidal despinning?

II. Gas giant planets.

A. Tools of investigation.

1. black-body radiation -- what and how does it tell us about atmosphere temperatures of the gas giants? What is luminosity?

2. Magnetic fields -- which gas giants have the strongest magnetic fields? What is the source of these fields? What are auroras and plasma toruses.

3. Heat flow and internal heat sources. How is internal heat flow outward calculated from blackbody radiation curves?

B. Gas giant moon systems.

1. The moons of Jupiter exhibit a change in tectonic activity and composition as a function of distance from Jupiter. What are these changes and why do they occur?

2. Rough composiitional layering of moons of gas giants.

C. Jupiter and Saturn vs. Uranus and Neptune -- how do the compostion of these two pairs of planets differ.

III. Meteors and asteroids.

A. Distribution of orbits and relative locations .

B. Compostions of meterorities. Iron meterorites and stony meteorites. What is a stony chondrite and a stony achondrite? What do chondrules suggest about the origin of a meteorite? What kind of a body are most iron meterorites fromed in?

C. Composition of comets. What are two parts of a comet tail composed of?