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 pillar formed as a stalactite and stalagmite meet.






2. The transformation of a soil from a solid to a liquid state as the result of increased pore pressure.






3. A planetary satellite.






4. An abandoned meander .






5. 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.






6. An artificial hill formed by the debris of successive human settlements.






7. The distance light travels through a vacuum in one year.






8. Molten rock & containing dissolved gases and suspended solid particles. At the Earth's surface & magma is known as lava.






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






10. A waste material that contaminates air & water & or soil.






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






12. The height of a place above sea level.






13. Gases (primarily water and carbon dioxide & but also a variety of sulfur and nitrogen compounds and gaseous hydrocarbons) that trap the Sun's heat in the atmosphere.






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






15. 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.






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






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






18. An artificial hill formed by the debris of successive human settlements.






19. 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.






20. 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.






21. Lies half way between the north and south magnetic poles.






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






23. A fracture or zone of fractures along the boundaries of tectonic plates where movement has taken place.






24. A process by which salts accumulate in soil.






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






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






27. 1. Breach in a natural levee . 2. Deep crevice or open fracture in glacier ice.






28. Gases (primarily water and carbon dioxide & but also a variety of sulfur and nitrogen compounds and gaseous hydrocarbons) that trap the Sun's heat in the atmosphere.






29. Produced as a wave steepens and falls forward as the wave nears the shore.






30. The direction & north (normal) or south (reversed) & that a magnetic compass needle points.






31. A hydrocarbon (coal or petroleum) that can be extracted from the Earth for use as a fuel. Fossil fuels are non-renewable energy sources.






32. 1. A mass of sand & gravel & or alluvium deposited on the bed of a stream & sea & or lake & or at the mouth of a stream 2. A unit of pressure & approximately equal to atmospheric pressure at sea level.






33. Igneous. Antonym of intrusive. Synonym of volcanic. Pertaining to igneous rocks or features formed from lava released on the Earth's surface.






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






35. Water beneath the Earth's surface.






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






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






38. A collection of maps.






39. 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.






40. A protective wall built offshore and usually parallel to the shore.






41. The sum of the processes that result in the wearing away or the progressive lowering of the Earth's surface by weathering & erosion & mass wasting & and transportation.






42. 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.






43. The breaking away of ice from the front of the glacier when it ends in a lake or an ocean. Produces icebergs.






44. A volcano that is composed of alternating layers of lava and pyroclastic material & along with abundant dikes and sills. Viscous & intermediate lava may flow from a central vent. Example: Mt. Fuji in Japan.






45. 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.






46. The symbol used on a map to indicate directions & both cardinal and ordinal.






47. The explosion of a dying giant or supergiant star.






48. 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.






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






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