Name: ______________________________________
Practice Questions “Glaciers”
Date: ___________________________
Regents Earth Science
1. _____ Which property would best distinguish sediment deposited by a river from sediment deposited
by a glacier?
(1) mineral composition of the sediments
(2) thickness of the layers of sediment
(3) age of fossils found in the sediment
(4) layering and sorting of sediment
The photograph to the right was taken from an airplane
flying over the Rocky Mountains. Winter snow covers
most of the higher land surface and forests can be seen
in the lower elevations.
2. _____ Which agent of erosion appears to have done
most of the excavation to shape these valleys?
(1) wind
(2) running water
(3) valley glaciers
(4) continental glaciers
3. _____ Which features of the New York State landscape were created by glacial processes?
(1) the Finger Lakes and Long Island
(2) the Catskills and the Adirondack Mountains
(3) Niagara Falls and the Mohawk River Valley
(4) the Hudson Highlands and Mt. Marcy
The diagram below represents three stages in the formation of a post-glacial feature.
4. _____ What name do geologists give to the feature in stage 3?
(1) kettle
(3) finger lake
(2) drumlin
(4) parallel scratches
5. _____ On Mohs scale, ice has a hardness of 1.5. Why can a glacier cause the grooves and parallel
scratches (striations) found in bedrock of granite and gneiss?
(1) The moving ice wears away at the rock surface.
(2) The ice carries rocks that abrade the rock surface.
(3) Alternating freezing and thawing wear the rock smooth.
(4) The weight of the ice pushed on the rock to make it smooth.
Base your answers to questions 6 through 8 on the diagram below, which shows landscape features
formed as the most recent glacier retreated from New York State.
6. _____ The moraine pictured in the
diagram were deposited directly by the
glacier. The sediments within these
moraines are most likely
(1) sorted by size and layered
(2) sorted by size and unlayered
(3) unsorted by size and layered
(4) unsorted by size and unlayered
7. _____ At the stage shown in the diagram above, the ice in the glacier is probably moving toward the
(1) north
(2) south
(3) east
(4) west
8. Describe one difference between the arrangement of sediment in the moraines and the arrangement
of sediment in the outwash plain. _________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________________
Base your answers to questions 9 and 10 on the shaded relief map below, which shows many hills
north of Manchester, New York.
9. _____ What do geologists call the hills on this map?
(1) grooves
(3) kettles
(2) drumlins
(4) erratic
10. _____ How can you tell that the glacier that shaped
these hills moved from the north?
(1) The hills are aligned east-west.
(2) The hills on the northern part of the map
are the highest.
(3) The roads run mostly north-south
and few roads cross the hills
(4) Most of the hills are steeper on the north
ends than on the south ends.