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






2. The straightening and/or deepening of a river channel.






3. A slide involving a downward and usually sudden movement of newly detached segments of bedrock sliding or slipping over an inclined surface of weakness such as a bedding plane & fault plane & or joint surface.






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






5. The process by which ocean floors spread laterally from crests of main ocean ridges. As material moves laterally from the ridge & new material replaces it along the ridge crest by welling upward from the mantle.






6. A sea level change due to change in load on Earth's crust.






7. 1. A low & bowl-shaped area of land surrounded by higher lands. 2. any large depression in which sediments are deposited.






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






9. 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






10. 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.






11. A broad & mound-like mass of glacier ice that usually spreads radially outward from a central zone.






12. The chronological sequence of units of Earth time.






13. The principle that states the processes operating to change the Earth in the present also operated in the past.






14. A post of dripstone growing up from a cave floor.






15. In the geologic time scale a unit of time less than an era and greater than an epoch. Example: The Tertiary period was the earliest period in the Cenozoic era and included & among others & the Eocene epoch.






16. Distance over which wave-forming winds blow.






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






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






19. Living in water.






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






21. One of several rock-forming minerals that contain at least 95% silica (quartz). and usually one or more other common elements.






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






23. A process by which salts accumulate in soil.






24. A narrow strip of land that has water on either side and connects two larger bodies of water.






25. The generally dark & more or less stable part of the organic matter in a soil & so well decomposed that the original sources cannot be identified.






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






27. The process of one plate descending beneath another.






28. An eon of geologic time extending from about 3.9 billion years to 2.5 billion years ago.






29. A small & dust-bearing whirlwind.






30. The layer of gases (air) & that surrounds a planet or moon.






31. The condition of equilibrium & comparable to floating & of units of the lithosphere above the asthenosphere.






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






33. The amount of material a stream carries in suspension.






34. That portion of the Earth below the crust and reaching to about 2 &780 km & where a transition zone of about 100 km thickness separates it from the core.






35. A coral reef separated from the mainland by a lagoon.






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






37. The processes (mechanical and chemical) responsible for the wearing away & loosening & and dissolving of materials of the Earth's crust.






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






39. Containing moisture.






40. 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






41. A pillar formed as a stalactite and stalagmite meet.






42. The first scientist to make systematic use of the telescope in looking at the heavens.






43. The precipitation that runs directly off the surface to stream or body of standing water.






44. The rock beneath the soil.






45. 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.






46. A depression in the ground formed by the melting of a block of glacier ice buried or partially buried by drift.






47. The very slow & generally continuous downslope movement of soil and debris under the influence of gravity.






48. 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.






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






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