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 part of the crust that directly underlies the continents and continental shelves. Averages about 35 km in thickness & but may be over 70 km thick under largest mountain ranges.






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






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






4. A general term including both oil and natural gas.






5. The areas of & in & or constituting a city.






6. The chronological sequence of units of Earth time.






7. A thick layer of soil.






8. Where one plate slides beneath another plate as the two are pushed together & a subduction zone.






9. A group of stars that appear to make a pattern in the sky. The Big Dipper is a constellation.






10. Mercury is named after the Roman messenger of the gods. It is the closest to the Sun.






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






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






13. Materials that are found in nature that are useful or necessary for people to live.






14. A person who makes maps.






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






16. A thick layer of soil.






17. Deep steep-sided depression in the ocean floor caused by the subduction of oceanic crust beneath either other oceanic crust or continental crust.






18. An eruption of lava that takes place from a fracture & usually without producing a cone.






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






20. The portion of the continental margin that lies between the abyssal plain and the continental slope. The continental rise is underlain by crustal rocks of the ocean basin.






21. The sudden fall of one or more large pieces of a rock from a cliff.






22. A reverse fault on which the dip angle of the fault plane is 15 degrees or less.






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






24. The science that deals with the study of the planet Earth--the materials of which it is made & the processes that act to change these materials from one form to another & and the history recorded by these materials; the forces acting to deform the ou






25. A conical volcano formed by the accumulation of pyroclastic debris around a vent.






26. 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.






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






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






29. To change back and forth uncertainly.






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






31. A lake of lava & usually basaltic & in a volcanic caldera.






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






33. A rock changed from its original form and/or composition by heat & pressure &shearing stress & or chemically active fluids & or some combination of them.






34. Turbulent stream water flow down a steep gradient & but not as steep as in a waterfall.






35. A hole or basin cut into bedrock of a stream by the abrasive action of pebbles and sand swirled by turbulent stream flow.






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






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






38. Large area of extremely flat ocean floor lying near a continent and generally over 4 km in depth.






39. Distance over which wave-forming winds blow.






40. A collection of maps.






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






42. A worldwide change in sea level & such as caused by melting glaciers.






43. A process of erosion in which wind carries off particles of dust and sand.






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






45. An area subject to dust storms & especially south central United States .






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






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






48. A tool for measuring the relative clarity of water.






49. A comet that passed Earth in 1997 and won't return to the inner solar system until the year 4377.






50. A thickened elevated region of Earth's crust that is mainly (but not entirely) above sea level.