Ch-1-Lab-1
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Metropolitan Community College, Maple Woods *
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101
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Geology
Date
Dec 6, 2023
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Introduction to Geology and Google Earth™ (Lab 1)
For this lab you will need the following:
Google Earth (Desktop Version)
Using Google Earth KMZ file (Located in the Chapter 1 Lab assignment in Canvas)
Calculator
In order to use these lab exercises, you must have Google Earth™ software installed on your
computer. The program is available at
Google Earth
. Scroll down to download the desktop
version. There is a browser version of Google Earth, but for your labs we will be using the
desktop version. Running the program requires a high-speed internet connection, and you will
find navigating is easier with a mouse than it is with a touch pad and keyboard, though either
will work.
Getting Started.
Open Google Earth Pro from your computer desktop.
Click the “Help” tab at the top of the Google Earth menu bar, and view the help resources,
keyboard shortcuts, and start-up tips.
Then, PLAY! Open the Google Earth mapping service software and fly around the globe, find your
state, your city, and your home or campus. On the left side of the screen you can search the
globe.
Try typing in famous locations or cities in the search bar and see what happens.
Fly to
your home and to your favorite vacation spots.
Give yourself some time for this—it will
familiarize you with the controls, and reduce the distraction of play when you do get to work on
these lab exercises.
Once you have spent some time moving about, find your house (it may or
may not be there depending on how old your house is, and the date of the images being used).
Google Earth Lab Exercises
In the lab assignment in Canvas, download the link for the Using Google Earth KMZ file. (This
is the same file you’ll see later in Plate Tectonics—Divergent and Transform Boundaries.)
Clicking on the downloaded link should launch Google Earth™ and open the file in your
“Places” frame.
If not, you can right click on the KMZ file, select “Save Target As…” and save
the file to your desktop.
Then open Google Earth™ and under File at the top of the page select
“Open” and browse to the KMZ file you just saved on your desktop.
Once you have opened the file in Google Earth, you can use it to follow the figures and
instructions that follow.
To the right of the screen in Google Earth you will see
the “sidebar” that appears when you first open the
program. There are 3 panels in the sidebar: Search,
Places, and Layers.
Each of these panels can be
expanded or hidden by clicking the triangular icon next
to the panel label.
You will not typically need the
Search feature is where you can find locations by typing
in an address, common location name, or more
specifically latitude and longitude.
The Places panel is where most of the action takes
place. When you click a KMZ file to open it, it will
appear in the Temporary Places folder within the Places
panel. In the figure below it shows the Plate Tectonics
—Divergent and Transform Boundaries exploration has
been loaded.
You can work from the Temporary Places folder, or you
can right-click content in Temporary Places to save it to
the My Places folder (it really doesn’t matter; you will
be given the option of saving your Temporary Places
content to My Places when you exit at the end of your
session). Content in My Places will be saved when you
close the application, and will appear there the next
time you open it.
Once you have downloaded a KMZ file, there are
several controls used to manage the display of the file
contents.
Refer to figure to the left, and notice the following
controls:
A
- Checking or unchecking the boxes will display or
hide the content.
B
- Content folders can be expanded or hidden by
toggling between + and – in the boxes next to the folder
name.
C
- Some content, like overlays and paths, can be made
more or less opaque with this slider.
D
- The view will automatically fly from placemark to
placemark within a folder when the play button is
clicked.
The Layers panel contains all sorts of “built-in” content, and you should take the time to browse
those various layers. They can be turned on and off by clicking the rectangular boxes next to the
layer names. You will definitely want the Terrain layer turned on as you work through the lab
exercises (it provides the 3D view of the Earth), but you should turn off all the other layers to
avoid cluttering the views as you work.
Content
Notice that the Search and Layers panels have been
hidden in the figure to the left, leaving the entire sidebar
for the Places panel. You will probably find it easier to
work through these lab exercises with your sidebar set
this way, too.
There are several types of content in these lab exercises:
Each lab exercise requiring Google Earth will download
as a .kmz file (A in in the figure to the left). Within that
file there will be one or more folders (B and C in the
figure), and each folder will contain some combination
of placemarks, paths, shapes, and overlays (D in the
figure).
Placemarks are content that is locked to a particular
place on Earth’s surface. They may simply mark a place,
or they may contain some combination of text,
hyperlinks, and images. A placemark can be viewed by
clicking it in the sidebar, or by clicking its icon in the
main display.
Each investigation area will be marked with a placemark
having a “?” icon, as indicated in the figure. Specific
placemarks within the investigation area will be
assigned other icons.
A path is simply a line or route drawn on the main
display. In the figure, the Red Sea Rift and the San
Andreas Fault are traced with paths.
A shape is a flat geometric shape that can be displayed
at any elevation in the main display.
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An overlay is a map or other image that is draped over the surface of the main display. An
important feature of overlays is that the opacity of the overlay can be adjusted. This feature is
very helpful when comparing the appearance of a landscape with a map image of it.
Other Tools and Controls
Google Earth contains a number of useful tools that you will use as you explore.
Click “View” in the toolbar at the top of the Google Earth window, and click the listed features
on and off each to see what they do. Make sure that at least the Status Bar is turned on. It
provides latitude and longitude and elevation information at the bottom of the main display.
You will use the ruler frequently as you work through these investigations. It is accessed by
clicking “Tools” in the top toolbar and selecting “Ruler” from the dropdown menu (see below).
Notice that you can select from a variety of measurement units, and that you can measure the
length of a path as well as make simple point-to-point measurements.
You will also find it necessary to make other adjustments as you work with the software. If you
select “Options” from the Tools dropdown, you are presented with this dialog box (See below).
(Mac users will find this feature under Google Earth > Preferences.)
Generally, the default settings will work fine, but you may find that resetting the vertical
exaggeration is necessary to get the most out of the displayed landscape. Use a setting of 0.5–1
when zooming in close on areas of high relief, like mountains, and a setting of 3 when the area
you are exploring is relatively flat. If you find that the application begins to slow down, you may
want adjust your cache size, and to get a clean start, clear your caches. You access those controls
by clicking the “Cache” tab in the Options dialog box.
Latitude and Longitude
When the ancient Greeks first began to make maps, a guy by the name of Ptolemy realized it was
necessary to put together a grid system to locate something on the surface of the Earth or
describe a location.
Today that imaginary grid system over the Earth is known as latitude and
longitude.
Latitude:
Latitude lines run in parallel lines east-west, increase north and south, and are
measured in degrees.
The center latitude line, otherwise known as the equator, is latitude 0°.
The furthest north and furthest south latitude (the North and South poles) are 90° North and 90°
South latitude respectively.
Longitude:
Longitude lines run north-south, increase east and west, and also are measured in
degrees.
Longitude lines converge (come together) at the poles and therefore are not parallel.
0°
longitude is known as the Prime Meridian and runs north-south through England.
Longitude
then increases to the east and west to 180° at the International Date Line.
Latitude and longitude are expressed as a magnitude and a direction.
For example, Kansas City
is located at about latitude 39 degrees north of the equator.
That would be written as 39° N.
Kansas City is also located at about longitude 95 degrees west of the Prime Meridian.
That
would be written as 95° W.
We can further measure latitude and longitude more accurately by
dividing degrees into smaller units.
These units are minutes and seconds and break down as
follows:
1° = 60’ (minutes)
1’ = 60” (seconds)
For example, we can more accurately express the latitude of Blue Springs, MO as 39° 02’ 30” N.
Lines of latitude are called parallels because they are parallel to each other and never meet,
unlike lines of longitude, which converge at the poles. From the menu bar, select view and turn
on the grid. Also, select tools on the menu bar, open the options and set the display units to
decimal degrees (on a Mac this will be in “Preferences,” under the Google EarthTM menu.)
Select the measure tool from the toolbar and set the units to kilometers.
Zoom out so you can see the entire Earth and answer the following:
1.
Where is 0° latitude?
The Equator
2.
Where is 90° N?
Is this latitude or longitude?
Latitude of the North Pole.
3.
Where is 180°?
Is this latitude or longitude?
Since it’s half of 360, it’s the halfway point from the prime meridian it becomes the longitude
line.
4.
Fly to your home and add a placemark to mark that spot. To add a placemark, you can click
on the yellow thumbtack image on the tool bar, or click on Add and Placemark on the menu bar
at the top of the screen.
You will see a large yellow thumbtack image that you can move about
using your cursor as well as a small Google Earth - New Placemark window.
Move the
thumbtack over your house location and in the Name bar in the New Placemark window label it
as your house.
You will also see the latitude and longitude coordinates listed for the placemark.
Record the latitude and longitude of your house below:
My house:
Latitude: 39°17"N
Longitude: 94°30"W
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5.
List three cities (and country) that are located along or near the 30th parallel (latitude) in the
Northern Hemisphere.
- Houston, TX
- Asia
- Africa
6.
List two cities (and country) that are located along or near the 30th parallel in the Southern
Hemisphere.
- Durban South Africa
- Australia
7.
List one city (and country) that is located along or near the Prime Meridian.
-London, England
8.
Locate and give the geographic coordinates of the following cities (estimate the degrees as
best you can):
Kansas City
39
°05’59.02" N 94°34’42.84" W
Washington D.C.
38
°
54’25.89
"
N 77 02’12.74
" W
London, England
51°30'25.98" N 0°07'39.31" W
Sydney, Australia
33°52'07.75" S 151°12'33.46" E
Moscow Russia
55°45'20.97" N 37°37'02.28" E
Tokyo, Japan
35°40'34.29" N 139°39'01.12" E
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil 22°54'24.65" S 43°10'22.43" W
Singapore
1°21'07.50" N 103°49'11.41" E
Using the Ruler Tool
9.
Now explore how to use the Ruler tool to measure distances between locations.
First, type
Kansas City
in the "Fly to" search bar and go to that city.
Now zoom out until you can see
Denver and Kansas City in the same screen.
Click on the ruler icon in the tool bar or you can
click on Tools and Ruler from the menu at the top of the screen.
The Ruler window will open
and make sure you are looking at the Line tab.
Place your cross hair on Kansas City and click
once.
Now place your cross hair on Denver and click once.
Record the distance in kilometers
below:
886.22319
10.
Now measure a series of distances for several locations.
Click clear in the Rulers window to
clear out the last measurement (or go to Tools and Rulers in the menu bar at the top of screen if
you closed the Ruler window).
Click on the Path tab in the small Ruler window.
Now type
Philadelphia in the "Fly to" search bar and go to the city.
Zoom out until you can see both
Philadelphia and Pittsburgh in the same window.
Place your cross hair on Philadelphia and click
once.
Now go to the following cities in order and click once on each: From Philadelphia to
Pittsburgh to Washington D.C. to Baltimore.
Record the total distance traveled in kilometers
below:
769.44
The Metric System
Metric units are used in most sciences including geology.
Not only that, most countries (except
the U.S.) have switch over to the metric system.
The U.S. has planned a gradual switch to the
metric system.
That is the reason we are starting to see banks using both the Fahrenheit and
Celsius temperatures and you can buy one and two liter bottles of pop at the grocery store.
System International units (S.I.) are based on the meter (length), degrees Celsius (temperature),
and the kilogram (mass).
The metric system is based on a conversion scale of base-10 units and
is actually a very easy system to.
It is important than that you become familiar with the metric
system since we will be using it frequently in this course.
Below are the prefixes used to describe the number of units of a standard unit.
Metric system prefix
Kilo-
1,000 units
Hector-
100 units
Deka-
10 units
Standard Unit
1 unit
Deci-
0.1 units
Centi-
0.01 units
Milli-
0.001 units
If our standard unit of measure is a meter, 1,000 meters would be one kilometer.
If our standard unit of measure is a liter, 0.001 liters would be one milliliter.
Metric Unit Conversion
Answer the following questions remembering these three rules of metric conversion:
Rule 1:
When changing from a larger unit (like kilometer) to a smaller unit (like centimeter)
move the decimal to the right.
Rule 2:
When changing from a smaller unit (millimeters) to a larger unit (like centimeters)
move the decimal to the left.
Rule 3:
The number of decimal spaces moved depends on how many base-10 prefixes between
the small and large prefixes.
For example, there are three base-10 prefixes between a millimeter
and a meter so you would move the decimals three spaces to the left (from a smaller unit to a
larger unit)
1.
Convert 1.0 meter to centimeters.
100 centimeters
2.
Convert 1.0 meter to millimeters.
1000 millimeters
3.
Convert 1.0 meter to kilometers.
(Hint: this will be a decimal)
0.001 kilometers
4.
Convert 3.5 kilometer to meters.
3500 meters
5.
Convert 625,000 centimeters to kilometers.
6.25 Kilometers
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