研究生科技英语阅读答案7.doc

Unit 7 Seeing the Earth for Its Faults I. comprehension and Appreciation 1. Is there any difference between the meaning of faults here in the title and that of in the daily language? 2. What impact does the collision of continents have on the climate? Why? Northwestern Africa crashed and ground against North America - and mountains as tall as the Alps rose in New England.? Wind and rain beat at the peaks and wore them down, and then the land on which they stood sank below the sea.? Waves and tides had their turn, and the towering ranges were largely leveled.? The land lifted.? The balmy weather turned cold.? Ice sheets scraped across bedrock, pushing a wall of rubble before them.? The climate warmed again, and glaciers melted, creating a huge lake that lapped behind the wall of glacial till.? Ice sheets kept melting; the lake swelled and stretched and, ultimately, broke through the wall at its lowest part.? Rivers began to flow through valleys that the glaciers had carved. 3. If you have the eyes of a geologist, what do you think would happen? To see New York with the eyes of a geologist and to understand why certain things look the way they do and stand where they do.? The scar where continents ground together runs down the Bronx River; the remnant of the mountains is the citys bedrock; the rubble pushed by the glaciers gave rise to Long Island; the great lake spilled over at the Verrazano Narrows; the Hudson and East rivers fill valleys deepened by glaciers.? 4. Would Wall Street and Midtown get similar impact with the other parts of New York? No, Wall Street and Midtown raised modern mountains of glass and granite because there was solid bedrock to build on, but in between lay insufficient foundation for skyscrapers - hence low-slung Greenwich Village and Soho.? Before garbage and landfill were strewn in its wetlands, Manhattan was cut in two when very high tides swelled the rivers and they met each other in the middle of the island, at 125th Street, where a fa