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. A stone or boulder & glacially transported from place of origin and left in an area of different bedrock composition.






2. 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.






3. Any natural concentration of a valuable material in the Earth's crust & whether that material can be extracted profitably or not.






4. The low spot between two successive waves.






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






6. An area in which a large number of windmills have been erected to generate electrical power.






7. The region of a shore that is covered at high tide and exposed at low tide.






8. A waterway from open ocean into a lagoon.






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






10. 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.






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






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






13. The most recent eon of geologic time beginning 570 million years ago and continuing to the present.






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






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






16. 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.






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






18. A giant structure that contains hundreds of billions of stars.






19. Applies to igneous rocks that cool on the surface of the Earth & including beneath water; typically with small crystals due to the rapidity of cooling. Synonym of extrusive. Antonym of plutonic.






20. A guide to reading a map that typically contains distance scales & arrows indicating direction & and/or explanations of symbols used.






21. The average weather conditions of an area over many years & as measured by temperature & wind speed & and precipitation.






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






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






24. An earthquake that follows and has its epicenter near a larger earthquake.






25. 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.






26. A valley caused by extension of the Earth's crust. Its floor forms as a portion of the crust moves downward along normal faults.






27. Any object that revolves around another object in space.






28. 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 &






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






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






31. The way in which a rock or mineral breaks in random patterns rather than cleaving






32. A process by which salts accumulate in soil.






33. A geometrical form taken by a mineral & giving external expression to orderly internal atomic arrangement.






34. Either the northern or southern half of the Earth as divided by the equator & or the eastern or western half as divided by a meridian.






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






36. Distance over which wave-forming winds blow.






37. A narrow strip of land along the margin of the ocean extending inland for a variable distance from low water mark.






38. Water beneath the Earth's surface.






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






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






41. 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.






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






43. In a stream & the volume of water passing through a channel in a given time.






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






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






46. The pattern of water circulation from the ocean to the atmosphere to the land and back to the ocean.






47. A general term for a relatively hard layer of soil at or just below the ground surface & cemented by silica & iron oxide & calcium carbonate & or organic matter.






48. A minor tremor that precedes an earthquake. An increase in seismicity may signal that a major release of strain energy is about to occur.






49. Long narrow beaches separated in many places from the mainland by lagoons.






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