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. The area bordering a stream over which water spreads when the stream tops its channel banks.






2. A floating ice sheet extending across water from a land-based glacier.






3. A natural open space underground & large enough for a person to enter. Most commonly occur by the dissolution of soluble rocks & generally limestone.






4. Till deposited from main body of glacier during ablation.






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






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






7. A commonly used scale of earthquake intensity.






8. The solid innermost part of the core with a diameter of a little over 1 &200 km.






9. The current geologic era & which began 66.4 million years ago and continues to the present.






10. A coral reef attached directly to the mainland.






11. A collection of maps.






12. Where two plates are moving in opposite directions as in a mid-ocean ridge.






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






14. The effect of water and carbon dioxide absorbing outgoing infrared radiation & raising a system's temperature. The term is generally used with reference to the Earth's temperature & although it can also be applied to other systems & such as greenhous






15. A low & nearly flat accumulation of sediment deposited at the mouth of a river or stream & commonly triangular or fan-shaped.






16. Property possessed by certain rocks of breaking with relative ease along parallel planes or nearly parallel surfaces in their crystal structures where the bonds are weakest.






17. An informal term to include all geologic time from the beginning of the Earth to the beginning of the Cambrian period 570 million years ago.






18. Living in water.






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






20. Flat land covered with tall grass and wildflowers.






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






22. 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.






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






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






25. 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.






26. 1. A steep-walled & usually conical depression at the summit or on the flanks of a volcano & resulting from the explosive ejection of material from a vent. 2. A bowl-shaped depression with a raised & overturned rim produced by the impact of a meteori






27. Woodland that usually gets at least 100 inches of rain each year.






28. The persistence of wind-formed waves after wind ceases.






29. The chronological sequence of units of Earth time.






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






31. A unit of length used in sea navigation based on the length of 1 minute of arc on a great circle. On Earth & 1 minute of latitude.






32. A vent on the seafloor from which hydrothermal fluids are emitted. Upon mixing with seawater and cooling & the fluids precipitate a cloud of fine-grained sulfide minerals that resembles a cloud of black smoke.






33. The reserves of a valuable mineral commodity plus all other mineral deposits that may eventually become available & even those that are presumed to exist but have not yet been discovered and those that are not economically or technologically exploita






34. 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.






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






36. Any molten material that is extrusive or volcanic & or the rock that forms from a molten extrusive. Molten rock that flows at the Earth's surface.






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






38. The two days of the year on which the noon sun is directly overhead at either 23.5






39. A flat & dry plain covered with short grass.






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






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






42. Plutonic. Antonym of extrusive. Pertaining to igneous rocks or features formed by the emplacement of magma in pre-existing rocks.






43. A cyclical pattern of movement in a fluid body such as the ocean & the atmosphere & or the Earth's mantle & driven by density variations which in turn are the result of differences in temperature from one part of the fluid to another.






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






45. Containing moisture.






46. A volcano in the shape of a flattened cone & broad and low & built by very fluid flows of basaltic lava.






47. 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.






48. Open pit mining & typically for coal.






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






50. The theory of Plate Tectonics states that the Earth's crust is fragmented into a dozen or more large and small pieces floating on a semi-molten mantle.