Wednesday, March 18, 2020

Week Three Quiz Essay

Week Three Quiz Essay Week Three Quiz Essay University of Phoenix Week Three Quiz Directions: Based on your readings and discussions in class this week, select the best answer. Utilize the Text Highlight feature or Bold your response. 1. Which of the following is not an effective way to think about money? a. Live below your means but within your needs. b. Only purchase needs, not wants. c. Financial freedom requires making a lot of money. d. Pay yourself first. 2. The best place for your emergency savings fund is a. in a liquid account at a bank or credit union that offers you the highest interest rate possible b. in a fireproof safe within your home; you want to be able to get to your money quickly in an emergency c. in your checking account or your debit-card account so you can get it right away- keep a mental note of what part of your balance is to be spent only on emergencies d. in a Roth IRA- you can always withdraw your contributions without a penalty or tax 3. If the money you have coming in each month (your take-home pay) is less than the money going out each month to pay the bills, you should a. make up the difference by using a credit card with a very low interest rate b. stop paying your credit card in full; paying just the minimum due gives you more money each month c. look through your spending for the single biggest expense you can eliminate completely to make your income equal what you spend d. find ways to trim spending from multiple spending categories till you have made up the shortfall 4. When selecting and using a debit card, you should avoid a. monitoring your account every other day b. prepay cards that allow you to load more money onto them c. debit cards tied to your checking account d. overdraft protection that allows you to spend more than you have 5. How do you make sure the money you deposit at a bank or credit union is 100% safe- that you are guaranteed to get every penny back no matter what? a. Keep the money in a checking or savings account, not a money-market fund. b. Keep cash in a safe-deposit box at a bank that you have access to seven days a week. c. Just make sure your balance is never more than $50,000 at a single bank or credit union, because that is the limit that financial institutions can guarantee. d. Confirm that a bank is a member of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC) or a credit union is a member of the National Credit Union Share Insurance Fund (NCUSIF), and never have more in your account than the maximum insured amount. 6. What is the main disadvantage of using only a debit card? a. Debit card purchases are not reported to credit reporting agencies and therefore will not help

Sunday, March 1, 2020

Geology and Topography of Antarctica

Geology and Topography of Antarctica Antarctica is not an ideal place for a geologist to work - it is widely considered one of the coldest, driest, windiest and, during winter, darkest places on Earth. The kilometers-thick ice sheet sitting on top of 98 percent of the continent makes geologic study even more difficult. Despite these uninviting conditions, geologists are slowly gaining a better understanding of the fifth-largest continent through the use of gravity meters, ice-penetrating radar, magnetometers, and seismic instruments. Geodynamic Setting and History Continental Antarctica makes up just a portion of the much larger Antarctic Plate, which is surrounded by mostly mid-ocean ridge boundaries with six other major plates. The continent has an interesting geologic history - it was part of the supercontinent Gondwana as recently as 170 million years ago and made a final split from South America 29 million years ago. Antarctica has not always been covered in ice. At numerous times in its geologic history, the continent was warmer due to a more equatorial location and differing paleoclimates. It is not rare to find fossil evidence of vegetation and  dinosaurs  on the now-desolate continent. The most recent large-scale glaciation is thought to have begun around 35 million years ago. Antarctica has traditionally been thought of as sitting on a stable, continental shield with little geologic activity. Recently, scientists installed 13 weather-resistant seismic stations on the continent that measured the speed of earthquake waves through underlying bedrock and mantle. These waves change speed and direction whenever they encounter a different temperature or pressure in the mantle or a different composition in the bedrock, allowing geologists to create a virtual image of the underlying geology. The evidence revealed deep trenches, dormant volcanoes, and warm anomalies, suggesting that the area may be more geologically active than once thought. From space, Antarcticas geographic features seem, for lack of a better word, nonexistent. Underneath all of that snow and ice, however, lie several mountain ranges. The most prominent of these, the  Transantarctic  Mountains, are over 2,200 miles long and split the continent into two distinct halves: East Antarctica and West Antarctica. East Antarctica sits on top of a Precambrian craton, made up of mostly metamorphic rocks like gneiss and schist.  Sedimentary deposits from the Paleozoic to Early Cenozoic age lie above it.  Western Antarctica, on the other hand, is made up of orogenic belts from the past 500 million years. The summits and high valleys of the Transantarctic Mountains are some of the only places on the entire continent not covered in ice.  The other areas that are free from ice can be found on the  warmer Antarctic Peninsula, which extends 250 miles northward from West Antarctica  towards South America. Another mountain range, the  Gamburtsev Subglacial Mountains, rises almost 9,000 feet above sea level over a 750-mile expanse in East Antarctica. These mountains, however, are covered by several thousand feet of ice. Radar imaging reveals sharp peaks and low valleys with topography comparable to the European Alps. The East Antarctic Ice Sheet has encased the mountains and protected them from erosion rather than smoothing them into glacial valleys. Glacial Activity Glaciers affect not only the topography of Antarctica but also its underlying geology. The weight of ice in West Antarctica literally pushes the bedrock down, depressing low-lying areas below sea level. Seawater near the edge of the ice sheet creeps between the rock and glacier, causing the ice to move much faster towards the sea. Antarctica is completely surrounded by an ocean, allowing sea ice to greatly expand in winter. Ice normally covers around 18 million square miles at the September maximum (its winter) and decreases to 3 million square miles during the February minimum (its summer).  NASAs Earth Observatory has a nice side-by-side graphic comparing the maximum and minimum sea ice cover of the past 15 years. Antarctica is almost a geographic opposite of the Arctic, which is an ocean semi-enclosed by landmasses. These surrounding landmasses inhibit sea ice mobility, causing it to pile up into high and thick ridges during the winter. Come summer, these thick ridges stay frozen longer. The Arctic retains around 47 percent (2.7 of 5.8 million square miles) of its ice during warmer months. The extent of Antarcticas sea ice has increased by approximately one percent per decade since 1979 and reached record-breaking levels in 2012 to 2014. These gains do not make up for diminishing sea ice in the Arctic, however, and global sea ice continues to disappear at a rate of 13,500 square miles (larger than the state of Maryland) per year.