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. Water that flows across watersheds during and immediately after severe rainstorms. In populated areas & stormwater runoff is often water that cannot be handled by existing sewer systems. Stormwater runoff is the leading source of water pollution in t






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






3. An era of geologic time lasting from 570 to 245 million years ago.






4. A period of dryness & that when prolonged & causes damage to crops; a shortage of water.






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






6. All unconsolidated materials above bedrock. Natural earthy materials on the Earth's surface & in places modified or even made by human activity & containing living matter & and supporting or capable of supporting plants out of doors.






7. Swamp that forms in the low lying flood plain behind a levee.






8. A device built to study distant objects by making them appear closer.






9. An instrument that detects & magnifies & and records vibrations of the Earth & especially earthquakes.






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






11. A river that is able to maintain its flow through a desert because of water received from outside the desert.






12. Any solid material that has settled out of a state of suspension in liquid.






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






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






15. 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.






16. Swamp that forms in the low lying flood plain behind a levee.






17. 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.






18. 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.






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






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






21. A time of unusual winds and currents in the Pacific Ocean . El Nino generally causes warmer-than-normal sea surface temperatures and increased rainfall and storm activity.






22. A large amount of gas and dust in space & spread out in an immense volume.






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






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






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






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






27. The closest galaxy to the Milky way. It is approximately 2 million light-years away.






28. The chronological sequence of units of Earth time.






29. The point on the Earth's surface directly above the focus of an earthquake.






30. Temporary accumulations of sediments that collect between low and high water marks.






31. No identifiable layers of minerals in a rock sample






32. The peak flow of water that tops the banks of a stream channel.






33. To change back and forth uncertainly.






34. A major drainage divide separating the drainage to one ocean from another.






35. Water beneath the Earth's surface.






36. A sharp bend & loop or turn in a stream's course. When abandoned & it is called a meander scar or an oxbow.






37. Mountains & characterized by extensive folding and thrust faulting & that form at convergent plate boundaries on continents.






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






39. 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.






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






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






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






43. The zone below the zone of aeration in which all pore spaces are filled with water.






44. 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.






45. The partial or complete blocking from view of one object by another.






46. The presence of layers in some rocks caused by parallel alignment of minerals.






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






48. All of space and everything in it.






49. A measure of acidity.






50. 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.