Physical Geology On-line Lab and Helpful Lab Hints

Exercise 17: Plate Tectonics

Problem 6

1. Why do river channels change their location? See Chapters 3 and 16 in the textbook.
   • think of one explanation realted to how rivers erode
   • think of an explanation related to a fault
   • Based on the maps and photos which explanation is more likely?
   • The photo and map from the lab book are here (with helpful labels and explanations)
2. Explain your answer based on what you know about transform boundaries and faults. (Lab book p. 266, 268, & 327)
3. Hint: look at Figure 17.14 on p. 339. Can you see the scarp? Click here to see the picture with the scarp labeled
4. Consider what happened to the "Older Channel." If the fault contiues to move, will the stream contiue to flow through the current channel?  
5. (go to page 240 in the lab book for the question)
   • rate = distance/time
   • For a detailed discussion click here
6. time = distance/rate
   • distance = 320 km
   • rate = the rate you calculated in 6.e. (Since you calculated the rate in cm/yr, you will need to divide it by 100,000 to convert it to km/yr)

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last updated: 2020-04-12