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Re: Geologic Mapping C

Posted: May 4th, 2014, 9:56 am
by elephantower
OMG A GEOMAPS TEST! Finally! Having skimmed it, I really like the variety difficulty, and sheer number of questions posed, but it seems like construction problems (ie. stereonet ad 3-point) are underrepresented compared to the rules and other released tests. Could you tell us the highest score received at regionals by any chance? Also, one of your problems has the same diagram as my question in the Q marathon--I think we stole it from the same textbook :P

EDIT: I can't figure out how to get a readable USGS map--the map locator doesn't seem to show actual topographic quadrangles, just an overview (w/o much of the information asked for in the test).
EDIT 2: The full-size map is at https://www.mytopo.com/products/quad.cfm?code=o40075b5 (I think). JCicc, if this is the right map, could you please link it in the test exchange?

Re: Geologic Mapping C

Posted: May 4th, 2014, 10:04 am
by elephantower
Pupitre--having drawn the line at Mohr Circles and stress vectors like syo_astro, all I can say is that it sounds suspiciously like linear algebra. If you want more information/resources on them, though, http://www.files.ethz.ch/structuralgeol ... stress.pdf is quite helpful.

Re: Geologic Mapping C

Posted: May 4th, 2014, 10:51 am
by Pupitre
Well that test answers my question as to whether or not UTM will be on the test this year. Lots of variety but everything was multiple choice, even a lot of the calculations. It seems to me that there's been a lot more emphasis on the actual mapping part and less on the geology than I thought.

Re: Geologic Mapping C

Posted: May 4th, 2014, 11:10 am
by syo_astro
Ah, Cicc, is there any test you can't write well...and to Pupitre the reason it's called Geologic Mapping is because it has both geology and mapping ;). I think Cicc meant to find http://store.usgs.gov/b2c_usgs/catalog/ ... 00158)/.do , that seems to have it. It's still a little hard to read, but it's better than nothing. I think for a regional it's a good test (it also leaves room for harder questions to certainly be asked at states/nats). I do have one question I will PM you Cicc.

Edit: I can't seem to get the link working -_-. Argh, idk why...but I basically went to http://store.usgs.gov/b2c_usgs/usgs/map ... a=2%29/.do , searched for Phoenixville, clicked the marker for the US Topo map, and I picked product 267120.

Re: Geologic Mapping C

Posted: May 4th, 2014, 12:13 pm
by rodowd
Did anyone here take the PA state test? I'm just curious to see what anyone else thought of it

Re: Geologic Mapping C

Posted: May 4th, 2014, 1:10 pm
by AlphaTauri
I did. It had a lot of maps... maps everywhere...

It was quite different from the practice/invitational tests I've taken, seemed to focus pretty heavily on 3a and just being able to interpret geologic maps. I wish it had been a significantly longer test, because about halfway through we were just going through the problems over and over trying to find more to write, and that it had covered more of the classic geomaps problems (cross-sections, three-point problems, stereonets, things like that). Also, I am not a fan of subjective questions...

And the quality of the images didn't make things any better either (um, which one is the dashed line and which one is the BOLD dashed line...) :|

Re: Geologic Mapping C

Posted: May 4th, 2014, 1:48 pm
by Pupitre
AlphaTauri wrote:I did. It had a lot of maps... maps everywhere...

It was quite different from the practice/invitational tests I've taken, seemed to focus pretty heavily on 3a and just being able to interpret geologic maps. I wish it had been a significantly longer test, because about halfway through we were just going through the problems over and over trying to find more to write, and that it had covered more of the classic geomaps problems (cross-sections, three-point problems, stereonets, things like that). Also, I am not a fan of subjective questions...

And the quality of the images didn't make things any better either (um, which one is the dashed line and which one is the BOLD dashed line...) :|
Haha yes that's what I meant by it having more mapping and less geologic. It didn't really touch upon a lot of things that are on the rules.

Re: Geologic Mapping C

Posted: May 4th, 2014, 2:18 pm
by elephantower
Has anyone looked at the Geologic Mapping CD? Is there anything uniquely useful on it?

Re: Geologic Mapping C

Posted: May 4th, 2014, 3:03 pm
by syo_astro
elephantower wrote:Has anyone looked at the Geologic Mapping CD? Is there anything uniquely useful on it?
I've looked at it...I think you can find multiple of the resources online or better ones from various books. My opinion, though, if others think otherwise I guess I wouldn't mind hearing something different.

Re: Geologic Mapping C

Posted: May 4th, 2014, 4:04 pm
by Pupitre
Could someone please explain 49-50 on that Pennsylvania test?