Quiz Questions
Geosci10
Laci Holdren
1) Sea floor is lost where it sinks back in the mantle at Subduction Zones. Which of
the following does NOT happen here:
A. Mud, rocks, and islands are scraped off the down going slab, piling up like
groceries.
B. Moving rocks stick and slip, making earthquakes.
C. The melt becomes very poor in silica.
D. Melt is generated, rises, and feeds volcanoes.
Answer: C.
Feedback: The opposite of this is true; the melt becomes very rich in silica and poor
in iron, which is called andesite. The volcanoes of the Andes were formed this way.
Refer to Unit 3: Subduction.
2) True/False: Sea floor is made at spreading ridges, therefore, the earth is getting
bigger.
Answer: False.
Feedback: Sea floor is indeed made at spreading ridges – however, the earth is NOT
getting bigger. The sea floor is hot and low-density originally, but then cools and
contracts as it gets older and becomes colder due to the ocean water. It then sinks
back into the mantle once it becomes cold and dense enough. We learned this in Unit
3 under “Ring of Fire”.
3) We can relate the Olympic Peninsula to a(n)
A. volcano erupting
B. grocery line
C. melting chocolate bar
D. dump trunk
Answer: B.
Feedback: We learned this in Unit 3, under The Olympic Grocery. It explains how the
rocks accumulate like a pile of groceries on the conveyor at a checkout line.
4) True/False: The San Andreas fault was formed by push together stresses.
Answer: False.
Feedback: It was formed by slide-past boundaries (also known as transform
boundaries). Plates came together and instead of sliding under or over top of one
another, they slid past each other. This is explained in Unit 3, under the Olympic
Grocery.
5) True/False: Predicting eruptions has a very high burden. We are able to do our
best to predict them, but depending on what happens, can un-please people no
matter what.
Answer: True.
Feedback: If we make a prediction a volcano is going to erupt and tell people to
evacuate and then it does not happen, they get angry. If we do not take the
prediction seriously and it does erupt then people are obviously mad about that one,
too, considering they may not even be alive anymore. Predicting volcanoes is very
hard and risky. See more about making predictions and the hazards in Unit 3.
6) True/False: The earth’s surface receives an equal amount of heat.
Answer: False
Feedback: Due to the curvature of the earth, the equator receives more sun then the
poles. See Unit 5: Why the wind blows.
7) There are two types of weathering: mechanical and chemical. Chemical
weathering
A. involves weak acids
B. is caused by expansion or breaking by the weight of overlying rock
C. picks up carbon dioxide from the air through rain water and makes
carbonic acid.
D. both A and C
Answer: D.
Feedback: Chemical weather does both of these things. Mechanical weathering deals
with expansion or breaking by weight of overlying rock. It is more physical. See
textbook 5.2.
8) The weathering process, in order, goes:
A. transport, weathering, erosion
B. weathering, transport, erosion
C. weathering, erosion, transport
D. transport, erosion, weathering
Answer: B.
Feedback: The changes that occur at a place are called weathering, which happens
first. Then the products are moved, which is known as transport. Weathering and
transport together are known as erosion. See weathering processes.
9) True/False: The tallest trees on earth are the Sequoias in Redwood National Park.
Answer: False.
Feedback: The tallest trees on earth are the redwoods. See Textbook 5.1.
10) The most important type of mass movement is
A. water because it is made up of hydrogen and carbon and together they
form strong bonds and make the movement quick and efficient.
B. glaciers because of their massive size and ability to “polish” things off.
C. soil creep because it transfers material downhill very slowly and only
moves a couple centimeters or inches per year.
D. human movement because our activities are moving material faster than
nature.
Answer: C.
Feedback: Soil creep is very common and known as being a slow, downslope motion
of soil. It is the most important in terms of transferring material. See Textbook 5.3.
11) True/False: Glaciers move and deform due to gravity.
Answer: True.
Feedback: Gravity does, indeed, move and deform glaciers. Their highest spot have
more force and their lowest have less force and they want to move from high to low
force due to gravity. See textbook 7.1.
12) True/False: Whether glaciers are frozen to the rock beneath or thawed, they
erode rapidly.
Answer: False
Feedback: Glaciers that are frozen to the rock beneath them do not typically erode
much, but glaciers that are thawed from their beds erode very rapidly – even faster
than streams or wind. See Glacier Tracks in textbook 7.1.
13) Glaciers erode by:
A. plucking
B. abrading
C. water flow
D. all of the above
Answer: D.
Feedback: Glaciers with lots of water at the bottom are good at eroding. Plucking is
when a glacier breaks loose small rocks and carries them. Abrading is when a glacier
drags the small rocks over other rocks, acting like sandpaper. All of these are
involved with glacier erosion.
14) Glaciers from when:
A. a giant snow avalanche occurs and everything piles up at the bottom,
forming into a glacier.
B. snowfall exceeds melting over enough years to make a big enough pile to
flow.
C. snow stays on the ground all year long due to very low temperatures
because the wind and ground currents drive/force the material together.
D. both B and C
Answer: B.
Feedback: This is the way glaciers are formed. In areas where there are very low
temperatures, but not enough snowfall, there is just permafrost. Snowfall needs to
exceed melting over enough years to create them. See Which Way Did it Flow? In
textbook 7.1.
15) True/False: Today, permanent ice covers one-tenth of the land on Earth.
Answer: True
Feedback: It covers mostly Antarctica and Greenland. See textbook 7.2 – Evidence of
Ice Ages.
16) Waves:
A. go slower in shallower water
B. always run directly parallel to the shore
C. move extra sand during summers than winters
D. both A an C.
Answer: D.
Feedback: Waves come in at an angle, and the first part of the wave slows at it hits
shallower water because waves move slower in shallower water due to friction. In
the wintertime, extra sand is moved out because of the winter storms, and extra
sand is moved in during the summertime, making up for the wintertime. See Unit 8.
17) True/False: Most US coasts are retreating.
Answer: True
Feedback: They are retreating about 75%. They are eroding, and only 25% is stable
or advancing. See textbook 8.2 – Changing coasts and Sea Levels.
18) Coasts retreating are caused from:
A. pumping groundwater out of the ground
B. past sea-level rise and glaciation
C. sea-level rising now
D. all of the above
Answer: D.
Feedback: All of these are causes for the coasts retreating in the U.S. Warming
causes sea levels to rise and expand the water, melting the ice. See textbook 8.2 –
Rising sea level and the future.
19) True/False: Cape Cod is slowly disappearing now, but will recover in the future
because the earth is a constant cycle.
Answer: False
Feedback: Cape Cod is only losing sand to deep water and to the ends of it making
new land. Due to the loss of sand, Cape Cod is slowly, but surely disappearing at
about three feet per year. See textbook 8.1.
20) True/False: Sea level is rising and accelerating and coasts are retreating.
Answer: True
Feedback: Due to certain actions of humans and other things as well, global
warming is causing the sea levels to rise, which, in turn, is affecting the coasts and
causing them to retreat. See textbook 8.2 – Rising sea levels and the future.
21) When classifying sedimentary rock we first:
A. look at the chemical makeup
B. look to see whether it’s clastic or chemically precipitated
C. examine the precipitates and then decide if it’s mechanical or chemical
D. examine the size
Answer: B.
Feedback: We first look at whether its clastic, which means, made from pieces/clasts
of older rock, or chemically precipitated, which means deposited from chemicals
dissolved in water. Limestones and evaporates are chemical precipitates. See
textbook 9.1 – classification of sedimentary rocks.
22) The principle of superposition states:
A. The oldest rock is on the bottom.
B. Rocks on the top look most like things that are still alive.
C. Fossils near each other are similar to each other.
D. Something must exist before you can break it.
Answer: A.
Feedback: Naturally, the oldest rock will be on bottom. If you have a layer of mud
and it hardens, and then a new layer of mud flows in on top and hardens, the oldest
layer is on bottom. This is what the principle of superposition states.
23) The eras in order from youngest to oldest go:
A. Cenezoic, Paleozoic, Mesozoic, Precambrian
B. Paleozoic, Mesozoic, Cenozoic, Precambrian
C. Cenezoic, Mesozoic, Paleozoic, Precambrian
D. Precambrian, Paleozoic, Mesozoic, Cenezoic
Answer: C.
Feedback: The eras are listed in textbook 9.2.
24) There are many different “UP indicators”. Which of these is NOT an indicator?
A. bubbles in lava rise to the bottom
B. shells usually flip over into their “stable position”
C. imprints are IN the mud
D. mud cracks narrow and disappear at the bottom.
Answer: A.
Feedback: Bubbles in lava rise to the top, not the bottom. Shells do flip over into
their “stable position” and usually stay this way. Imprints are made into the mud,
which makes sense if you think about walking in mud. Mud cracks are wider at the
surface and narrow as they go down farther into the earth, eventually disappearing.
See textbook 9.2 – Stratigraphy.
25) True/False: William Smith derived the Principle of Superposition.
Answer: False
Feedback: William Smith developed the Law of Faunal Succession in the 17th
century. He was from England and stated that fossils near each other are similar to
each other, rocks of similar age have similar fossils and vice versa, and rocks on top
(which are the youngest usually) look most like the things still alive. See textbook
9.2 – Fossils and Relative Time – The Law of Faunal Succession.