calculate anticipated drilling depth to target bed

Question

How do I tutor my daughter in this kind of math: Calculate the anticipated depth to an important dipping sediment bed. The bed has a 52 degree dip measured at an out crop 0.5 km for the planned drill site. Use trigonometry of right triangles and the tangent function to calculate.

Answer 1

Use the given information to construct a triangle. Remember that $tan(\theta) = \frac{O}{A}$ where $O$ (resp. $A$) is the side of the triangle opposite of (resp. adjacent to) the angle $\theta$. You know two of the three variables, so now it's just algebra.