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. Heat extracted from the Earth for use as an power source.






2. 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.






3. A person who makes maps.






4. 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.






5. Produced as a wave steepens and falls forward as the wave nears the shore.






6. Highly mafic igneous volcanic rock & typically fine-grained and dark in color; rough volcanic equivalent of gabbro. Basalt is the most abundant volcanic rock in the Earth's crust.






7. A spring whose temperature is 6.5o C or more above mean annual air temperature.






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






9. The acidity in rain due to gases from internal combustion engines and coal- and oil-burning power plants.






10. A soft compact calcite & CaCO3 & with varying amounts of silica & quartz & feldspar & or other mineral impurities & generally gray-white or yellow-white and derived chiefly from fossil seashells.






11. The processes (mechanical and chemical) responsible for the wearing away & loosening & and dissolving of materials of the Earth's crust.






12. Where two plates collide to form mountains.






13. Open pit mining & typically for coal.






14. An eruption of lava that takes place from a fracture & usually without producing a cone.






15. 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.






16. Surficial mining & in which the valuable rock is exposed by removal of overlying rock or soil.






17. An accumulation of wind driven sand into a distinctive shape.






18. A detailed mathematical description of the cause-and-effect relationships between events that can be used to predict or explain other such events.






19. Bent rock strata.






20. The amount of material a stream carries in suspension.






21. An individual grain or constituent of a rock.






22. A large & basin-shaped volcanic depression & more or less circular in form. Typically steep-sided & found at the summit of a shield volcano.






23. A cavity in a lava & formed by the entrapment of a gas bubble during solidification of the lava.






24. A group of stars that appear to make a pattern in the sky. The Big Dipper is a constellation.






25. Iron & aluminum & magnesium & manganese & and titanium. Ores of the abundant metals only need to be 3 - 5 times as metal-rich as average rock.






26. The current geologic era & which began 66.4 million years ago and continues to the present.






27. A wall built out from the shore & usually at perpendicular to it to trap sand carried by longshore currents .






28. An imaginary circle around the earth that represents the halfway mark between the North and South Poles and establishes the boundary between the Northern and Southern Hemispheres.






29. To change back and forth uncertainly.






30. A valley carved by glacier erosion and whose cross-valley profile has steep sides and a nearly flat floor & suggestive of a large letter 'you'.






31. To change back and forth uncertainly.






32. A small ice sheet.






33. Flat land covered with tall grass and wildflowers.






34. Occurs at the intersection of the water table with the ground surface.






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






36. A thick layer of soil.






37. A post of dripstone growing up from a cave floor.






38. A steep-sided rounded extrusion of highly viscous lava squeezed out from a volcano and forming a dome-shaped or bulbous mass above and around the volcanic vent. The structure generally develops inside a volcanic crater.






39. The chronological sequence of units of Earth time.






40. The green pigment in the cells of many plants that enables them to use sunlight to convert carbon dioxide and water into carbohydrates in the process called photosynthesis.






41. A vent on the seafloor from which hydrothermal fluids are emitted. Upon mixing with seawater and cooling & the fluids precipitate a cloud of fine-grained sulfide minerals that resembles a cloud of black smoke.






42. A large area of flat or nearly flat land.






43. The rigid outer shell of the Earth. It includes the crust and uppermost mantle and is on the order of 100 km in thickness.






44. The zones of seismic activity long which plates are in contact.






45. A sedimentary rock composed of combustible matter derived from the partial decomposition of plant material.






46. Pertaining to or composed of granite & a coarse-grained igneous rock dominated by light-colored minerals & consisting of about 50 percent orthoclase & 25 percent quartz & and balance of feldspars and ferromagnesian silicates. Granite is commonly foun






47. A cyclical pattern of movement in a fluid body such as the ocean & the atmosphere & or the Earth's mantle & driven by density variations which in turn are the result of differences in temperature from one part of the fluid to another.






48. The tendency of a moving object to continue in a straight line or a stationary object to remain in place.






49. Heat transport by direct transfer of energy from one particle to another & without moving the particle to a new location.






50. The Earth's crust underlying the ocean basins which is formed at mid-oceanic ridges. It is typically 5 to 10 kilometers thick composed of basalt.