EOSC 114 Study Guide - Winter 2018, Comprehensive Midterm Notes -
12 Oct 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
EOSC 114
MIDTERM EXAM
STUDY GUIDE
Fall 2018
EOSC114 – Fragile Systems
Natural Disasters are Rare Events
Magnitude Prefixes
• The International System of Units (SI) specifies the following prefixes to represent
various multiples or magnitudes:
Time
• The SI standard for time is seconds (s).
• Other non-SI time units (but accepted use with SI) derived from this standard include
minutes (min), hours (h), and days (d).
• We also use other time units that are not standard (can vary), such as years (yr) and
millenniums.
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o We can use these time units and prefixes to describe some important events in
earths evolution such as the age of the earth (4.57 billion years or 4.57 Ga), the
age of the oceans (4.3 Ga), the age of the present ocean basins (200 million years
or 200 Ma – when Pangaea broke up into the present-day continents), and the
time before present when life begins (3.8 Ga).
• Time can also be used to quantify how many disasters involve a sudden release of large
amounts of energy, even though the energy supply is initially very slow. The energy
must first be concentrated, but this takes time.
o Examples where the build-up time is greater than the release:
• Some disasters have less build up time and more release time, including:
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
Magnitude prefixes: the international system of units (si) specifies the following prefixes to represent various multiples or magnitudes: The energy must first be concentrated, but this takes time: examples where the build-up time is greater than the release, some disasters have less build up time and more release time, including: Trench) is 11km: an air molecule is 10-9m. Mass: mass is what things are made of (matter, the si standard unit of mass is the kilogram (kg). A solid iron cannon ball will sink when immersed in a fluid. The end result is a layering of materials. Intensity using logarithmic scales: to avoid graphing difficulty, we can use a logarithmic graph, where the ordinate (the vertical axis of the graph) steps by powers of 10. The abscissa (horizontal axis) is linear, but the ordinate steps by orders of magnitude. A disaster of intensity 6 is how much stronger than a disaster of intensity 4: 2, 10, 100, 104.
