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. An astronomical instrument for measuring angles & primarily altitude of celestial bodies to determine latitude.






2. A small & dust-bearing whirlwind.






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






4. A famous scientist who proposed that the Sun was the center of the solar system not the Earth. (Heliocentrism)






5. A process of land degradation initiated by human activity & particularly in the zones along the margins of deserts.






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






7. A commonly used measure of earthquake magnitude & based on a logarithmic scale. Each integral step on the scale represents a tenfold increase in the extent of ground shaking & as recorded on a seismograph.






8. Heat transport by moving particles & and the thermal energy that they carry & to a new location.






9. Ratio between weight of given volume of material and weight of equal volume of pure water.






10. A Hawaiian term for a lava flow that has a rough & jagged surface.






11. Refers to rock or sediments made up primarily of broken fragments of pre-existing rocks or minerals.






12. A lake in an abandoned meander.






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






14. The primary division of geologic time which are & from oldest to youngest & the Hadean & Archean & Proterozoic & and Phanerozoic eons.






15. 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.






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






17. 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.






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






19. A person who makes maps.






20. A landscape that develops from the action of ground water in areas of easily soluble rocks. It is usually characterized by caves & underground drainage and sinkholes.






21. Elongated rises on the ocean floor where basalt periodically erupts & forming new oceanic crust.






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






23. 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.






24. 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






25. Destruction of the ozone layer caused by the release of CFC's (chlorofluorocarbons) into the atmosphere which react chemically with ozone and break it down into different gases.






26. A broad & deep & generally straight furrow carved in bed rock by the abrasive action of debris embedded in a moving glacier. Larger and deeper than a glacial striation.






27. The level of light that penetrates through water.






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






29. A measure of the strength of an earthquake based on the amount of movement recorded by a seismograph . compare Richter scale.






30. 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






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






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






33. 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.






34. A large area with common features that set it apart from other areas.






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






36. A planetary satellite.






37. The rise and fall of sea level caused by the gravitational pull of the Sun and Moon on the Earth.






38. The process by which an unconsolidated deposit of sediments is converted in to solid rock.






39. A mound or ridge of sediment deposited by a glacier.






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






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






42. A commonly used scale of earthquake intensity.






43. The processes of weathering by which physical actions such as frost wedging break down a rock into fragments & involving no chemical change.






44. The process by which a binding & or cementing & agent is precipitated in spaces among individual particles of a deposit. Common cementing agents are calcite & quartz & and dolomite.






45. A small ice sheet.






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






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






48. The two days of the year on which neither hemisphere is tilted toward or away from the sun.






49. A coral reef attached directly to the mainland.






50. The initial point within the Earth that ruptures in an earthquake & directly below the epicenter. The point within the Earth which is the center of an earthquake & at which strain energy is first released and converted to elastic wave energy.