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. Fossils formed when water containing minerals leaks into a mold. The minerals harden to form a copy of the original structure or organism.






2. The relationship between distances in the area being mapped and distances in the map itself.






3. The dust-sized & sharp-edged & glassy particles resulting from an explosive volcanic eruption.






4. A permeable region of rock or soil through which ground water can move.






5. The theory that states that the present-day continents are the fragmented pieces of preexisting larger landmasses called supercontinents.






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






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






8. As applied to glacier ice & the process by which ice below the snow line is wasted by evaporation and melting.






9. Enormous & thick sheets of rock that are part of the Earth's upper mantle that move and adjoin each other along zones of seismic activity. Many tectonic plates extend underneath both continents and sea floor.






10. The production of living matter by organisms that make food using sunlight or chemicals. Usually expressed as grams of carbon per square meter per year.






11. Glacial drift composed of rock fragments that range from clay to boulder size and randomly arranged without bedding.






12. 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 &






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






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






15. A continuous well-defined mass of material of sufficient ore content to make extraction economically feasible. compare mineral deposit.






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






17. The portion of the continental margin that lies between the abyssal plain and the continental slope. The continental rise is underlain by crustal rocks of the ocean basin.






18. (Latin- Terra & Greek- Gaia) Earth is named after the ancient Germanic Goddess of the soil. It is the third planet from the Sun.






19. Sediment formed by chemical precipitation from water. Example: halite precipitated as the result of the evaporation of sea water.






20. A system that uses a constellation of 24 satellites & their ground stations & and individual GPS receivers to accurately locate points on Earth.






21. The method of locating an epicenter by determining how far it lies from three widely separated seismographs.






22. The area immediately below the ground surface within which pore spaces are partially filled with water and partially filled with air.






23. That portion of the Earth below the crust and reaching to about 2 &780 km & where a transition zone of about 100 km thickness separates it from the core.






24. The top of a wave.






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






26. A blanket of wind-driven sand with an upper surface about a meter above ground level.






27. Shapes & like mountains or hills that make up the Earth's surface.






28. The low spot between two successive waves.






29. The outermost part of the core. It is liquid & about 1 &700 km thick & and separated from the inner & solid core by a transition zone about 565 km thick.






30. Verifying assessments made from satellite data by doing direct & 'on-the ground' measurements.






31. Uranus is named after the Roman god of the sky. It is the seventh planet from the Sun.






32. A tool for measuring the relative clarity of water.






33. The portion of the continental margin that extends as a gently sloping surface from the shoreline seaward to a marked change in slope at the top of the continental slope . Seaward depth averages about 130 m.






34. A process by which salts accumulate in soil.






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






36. A study designed to collect critical data to be used for comparison or as a control in a later study.






37. An isolated & steep-sided & rocky mass or island just offshore from a rocky headland & usually on a shore platform.






38. 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.






39. The principle that states the processes operating to change the Earth in the present also operated in the past.






40. The outermost part of the core. It is liquid & about 1 &700 km thick & and separated from the inner & solid core by a transition zone about 565 km thick.






41. 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.






42. A reverse fault on which the dip angle of the fault plane is 15 degrees or less.






43. Weathering processes that are the result of chemical reactions. Example: the transformation of orthoclase to kaolinite.






44. A person who makes maps.






45. A depression in the ground formed by the melting of a block of glacier ice buried or partially buried by drift.






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






47. A large ridge or mound-like structure within a body of water that is built by calcareous organisms such as corals & red algae & and bivalves.






48. Forms along a coast as wave erosion cuts through a headland.






49. Where one plate slides beneath another plate as the two are pushed together & a subduction zone.






50. The seaward edge of coast between low tide and effective wave action.