Test your basic knowledge |

Earth Science

Subject : science
Instructions:
  • Answer 50 questions in 15 minutes.
  • If you are not ready to take this test, you can study here.
  • Match each statement with the correct term.
  • Don't refresh. All questions and answers are randomly picked and ordered every time you load a test.

This is a study tool. The 3 wrong answers for each question are randomly chosen from answers to other questions. So, you might find at times the answers obvious, but you will see it re-enforces your understanding as you take the test each time.
1. The resistance of a mineral to scratching & as measured by the Mohs scale.






2. A planetary satellite.






3. The very small particles of dirt & soot & and other pollutants that are present in the air.






4. A commonly used measure of earthquake magnitude & based on a logarithmic scale. Each integral step on the scale represents a tenfold increase in the extent of ground shaking & as recorded on a seismograph.






5. A worldwide change in sea level & such as caused by melting glaciers.






6. That part of the continental margin that lies between the continental shelf and the continental rise. Slope relatively steep & 3o - 6o. The continental slope is underlain by crustal rocks of the continent.






7. A delta formed at both sides of a tidal inlet.






8. A community of plants and/or animals and its physical environment & regarded as a unit.






9. Any porous and permeable rock that yields oil or natural gas.






10. The prediction that climate will warm as a result of the addition to the atmosphere of humanly produced greenhouse gases.






11. Open pit mining & typically for coal.






12. Destruction of the ozone layer caused by the release of CFC's (chlorofluorocarbons) into the atmosphere which react chemically with ozone and break it down into different gases.






13. A rigid segment of the Earth's lithosphere that moves horizontally and adjoins other plates along zones of seismic activity. Plates may include portions of both continents and ocean basins.






14. The upper horizons in a soil & through which gravitational moisture travels & removing soluble decomposition products.






15. A statement of relative age in layered rocks: In a series of sedimentary rocks that has not been overturned & the topmost layer is always the youngest and the bottommost layer is always the oldest.






16. Living parts of the environment that can renew or replace themselves.






17. The line that separates one drainage basin from another.






18. Deposits of wind-borne dust.






19. A hot & gaseous & self-luminous celestial body & as the Sun.






20. A rigid segment of the Earth's lithosphere that moves horizontally and adjoins other plates along zones of seismic activity. Plates may include portions of both continents and ocean basins.






21. A Hawaiian term for a lava flow that has a rough & jagged surface.






22. A thick layer of soil.






23. A flood that rises and falls very rapidly.






24. A disease-causing organism or entity & such as a bacterium or virus.






25. A flat & dry plain covered with short grass.






26. A type of thermal spring which ejects water intermittently with considerable force.






27. Banks of sand and silt along stream bank built by deposition in small increments during successive floods.






28. A community of plants and/or animals and its physical environment & regarded as a unit.






29. Refers to rock or sediments made up primarily of broken fragments of pre-existing rocks or minerals.






30. The part of the crust that directly underlies the continents and continental shelves. Averages about 35 km in thickness & but may be over 70 km thick under largest mountain ranges.






31. A collection of maps.






32. The theory of Plate Tectonics states that the Earth's crust is fragmented into a dozen or more large and small pieces floating on a semi-molten mantle.






33. The surface between the zone of saturation and the zone of aeration.






34. A layer of sedimentary rock; plural is strata.






35. The sudden fall of one or more large pieces of a rock from a cliff.






36. A region of high heat flow on the Earth's surface & thought to lie above a mantle plume .






37. A ball of ice and dust & whose orbit is a long & narrow ellipse.






38. The accumulation of material in layers or beds.






39. Evidence in rock of the presence of past life & such as a dinosaur bone & an ancient clam shell & or the footprint of a long-extinct animal as well as life history artifacts.






40. Property possessed by certain rocks of breaking with relative ease along parallel planes or nearly parallel surfaces in their crystal structures where the bonds are weakest.






41. A seismic body wave that involves particle motion from side to side & perpendicular to the direction of wave propagation. S-waves are slower than P-waves and cannot travel through a liquid.






42. The uprush of a wave onto the beach followed by the return flow of the water down the beach slope in the intervals between waves.






43. Imaginary lines on a map or globe that measure distance in degrees north or south of the equator. Latitude lines extend horizontally & from east to west on a globe.






44. The study of earthquakes & and of the structure of the Earth by both natural and artificially generated seismic waves.






45. Large area of extremely flat ocean floor lying near a continent and generally over 4 km in depth.






46. A dense & hot (sometimes incandescent) cloud of volcanic ash and gas produced in a Pelean eruption.






47. A building that contains one or more telescopes.






48. Similar to a groin but built to keep sand out of a harbor entrance.






49. A mudflow composed chiefly of pyroclastic material on the flanks of a volcano.






50. In the geologic time scale a unit of time less than an era and greater than an epoch. Example: The Tertiary period was the earliest period in the Cenozoic era and included & among others & the Eocene epoch.