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. Lacking in rainfall & very dry.






2. A plate boundary in which plates on opposite sides of the boundary move past each other in opposite directions. The San Andreas fault of California is a good example.






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






4. No identifiable layers of minerals in a rock sample






5. A sea level change due to change in load on Earth's crust.






6. The chronological sequence of units of Earth time.






7. The reflection of light on a given mineral's surface & classified by intensity and quality.






8. A broad & mound-like mass of glacier ice that usually spreads radially outward from a central zone.






9. A slide involving a downward and usually sudden movement of newly detached segments of bedrock sliding or slipping over an inclined surface of weakness such as a bedding plane & fault plane & or joint surface.






10. 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.






11. A sea wave produced by any large-scale & short duration disturbance on the seafloor & commonly a shallow submarine earthquake but possibly also a submarine slide or volcanic eruption.






12. Water beneath the Earth's surface.






13. A ridge of high water associated with a hurricane and which floods over the shore .






14. Deposits of wind-borne dust.






15. The concept of a sequence of events involving the formation & alteration & destruction and reformation of rocks as a result of geologic processes.






16. A fracture or zone of fractures along the boundaries of tectonic plates where movement has taken place.






17. A group of islands; an expanse of water with scattered islands.






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






19. An instrument that merely indicates the occurrence of an earthquake.






20. A naturally occurring inorganic solid that has a well-defined chemical composition and in which atoms are arranged in an ordered fashion.






21. 1. Breach in a natural levee . 2. Deep crevice or open fracture in glacier ice.






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






23. A downward distortion or dimple in the water table that forms as a well pumps water faster than it can flow through the aquifer.






24. Deep steep-sided depression in the ocean floor caused by the subduction of oceanic crust beneath either other oceanic crust or continental crust.






25. An era of time during the Phanerozoic eon lasting from 245 million years ago to 66.4 million ago.






26. The naturally occurring material from which a mineral or minerals of economic value can be extracted at a profit.






27. A narrow & steep-walled depression in the ocean floor & much deeper than the adjacent ocean and associated with a subduction zone.






28. The physical & chemical & and biological processes by which rock at or near the Earth's surface is broken down into smaller pieces.






29. Gases (primarily water and carbon dioxide & but also a variety of sulfur and nitrogen compounds and gaseous hydrocarbons) that trap the Sun's heat in the atmosphere.






30. A zone in the Earth between 400 and 670 km below the surface separating the upper mantle from the lower mantle.






31. The explosion of a dying giant or supergiant star.






32. A narrow strip of land that has water on either side and connects two larger bodies of water.






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






34. The geologic eon lying between the Archean and Phanerozoic eons & beginning about 2.5 billion years ago and ending about 0.57 billion years ago.






35. Igneous. Antonym of intrusive. Synonym of volcanic. Pertaining to igneous rocks or features formed from lava released on the Earth's surface.






36. A general term including both oil and natural gas.






37. The outermost layer of the Earth & varying in thickness from about 10 kilometers (6 miles) below the oceans & to 65 kilometers (about 40 miles) below the continents; represents less than 1 percent of the Earth's volume.






38. The southern portion of the late Paleozoic supercontinent known as Pangea. It means & literally 'Land of the Gonds' (a people of the Indian subcontinent).The supercontinent existed from Cambrian to Jurassic time & mainly composed of South America &






39. A group of islands; an expanse of water with scattered islands.






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






41. A narrow & elongate region in which one lithospheric plate descends relative to another.






42. Saturn is named after the Roman god of the harvest. It is the sixth planet from the Sun.






43. The distance between two successive wave crests or troughs.






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






45. The point on the Earth's surface that is directly above the focus of an earthquake.






46. 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.






47. A collection of maps.






48. An aggregate of one or more minerals in varying proportions.






49. The line formed by the intersection of the axial plane of a fold with a bedding plane & marking where the bed shows its maximum curvature.






50. 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.