Which of the following best describes sets of fractures in relatively fresh bedrock, such
as granite, that are roughly parallel to the land surface?
A) thermal expansion cracks
B) sheeting fractures
C) hydrolytic failures
D) columnar joints
When someone says we have a southeast wind, what direction would you look to face
into the wind?
A) southeast
B) northwest
C) east
D) west
The main difference between Bright and Dark Nebulae is ________.
A) the composition of their gases
B) the composition of their dust
C) their proximity to a black hole
D) their proximity to a blue star
E) none of the above
The earth’s major layers formed because ________.
A) the chemical composition of the solar nebula changed over time
B) the earth was heated after its formation resulting in melting and redistribution of
major chemical compositions
C) radioactive decay caused materials to change over time and resulted in the layering
D) the earth’s mantle grew like a crystal forming around the earth’s core but the crust
was exposed to space and stayed more like the original material
What is a “main sequence star”?
A) a star that is aligned with many other, similar colored stars
B) a star that is in a group of stars with similar ages and sizes
C) a star that falls in a band in a band on the H-R Diagram with most other stars
D) a star that is statistically indistinguishable from 90% of all stars
E) a star that shows the same trend in distance from earth and temperature as many
other stars
Mount Pelee on the Island of Martinique erupted in the early 20th century. Why is this
eruption famous?
A) It was the first caldera forming eruption observed by modern scientists.
B) It produced a major lateral blast that leveled a city, killing many people.
C) It was a small cinder cone on an island that erupted in a sugar cane field.
D) The volcano produced a pyroclastic flow that swept down the mountain, killing
thousands of people.
Considering the history of Mt. St. Helens and Kilauea volcanoes and your knowledge of
volcano types in different tectonic settings, if you had to live on a volcano, which of the
following would you choose if safety was your only concern?
A) Mt. Spurr in the Aleutian volcanic arc
B) Mt Fujiyama in the Japanese island arc
C) Mt. Rainier in the Cascades just north of Mt. St. Helens
D) Mauna Loa in Hawaii, on the Big Island of Hawaii near Kilauea
Oysters are an invertebrate the lives today in brackish waters along coastal zones. When
a geologist working in stratified rocks observes a limestone bed with oyster fossils
overlain by beds with clam and echinoderm fossils indicative of marine conditions, the
fossils probably indicate ________.
A) the oysters went extinct while these rocks were being deposited
B) the oysters evolved into clams and echinoderms
C) the environment changed as sea level rose, displacing the oysters environment with
marine conditions represented by the clams and echinoderms
D) There is not sufficient information to reach any conclusion from these observations.
Which of the following is not a very long-lived, radioactive isotope?
A) U-238
B) K-40
C) Rb-87
D) C-14
The Martian polar caps are thought to be mainly frozen methane and ammonia.
Spiral galaxies tend to resemble a pinwheel because ________.
A) stars in the center of the galaxy are moving faster than the ones on the outer edges
B) stars are moving from the center to the edges of the galaxy
C) the barred structures form twisted pathways that distort the flow patterns
D) the stars in the center are very old and large while the outer edges of the galaxy
contain the youngest and smallest stars
E) stars in the center of galaxy are moving more slowly than the ones on the outer
edges.
The major difference in vegetation between the different humid tropical (A) regions is
that ________.
A) wet tropical regions have rain forests, and tropical wet and dry regions have
grasslands
B) wet tropical regions have grasslands, and tropical wet and dry regions have rain
forests
C) wet tropical regions have grasslands, and tropical wet and dry regions have brush
and succulents
D) wet tropical regions have brush and succulents, and tropical wet and dry regions
have grasslands
E) wet tropical regions have rain forests, and tropical wet and dry regions have brush
and succulents
Deserts occur primarily in the Africa, Arabia, and Australia because of ________.
A) subsiding air currents
B) rising air currents
C) high temperatures
D) mountains that block the moisture and long distances from the oceans
In the Gulf Coast region of the United States cold fronts intense spring floods are often
associated with a phenomenon known locally as “training” where thunderstorms form
along a line and follow the same line for hours. This is a classic example of severe
weather along a ________.
A) hurricane
B) cold front
C) stationary front
D) warm front
Which type of basaltic lava flow has a fairly smooth, unfragmented, ropy surface?
A) aa
B) pegmatitic
C) pahoehoe
D) scoria
Mechanisms that enhance or drive change are known as ________.
A) negative feedback mechanisms
B) positive feedback mechanisms
C) closed feedback mechanisms
D) open feedback mechanisms
Zircons found in continental rocks give evidence that continental crust was forming as
long ago as ________.
A) 4.4 billion years ago
B) 1.9 billion years ago
C) 564 million years ago
D) 70 million years ago
E) 10,000 years ago
One important reason we do not know much about the geologic history of the
Precambrian is that ________.
A) rocks did not exist during much of that time
B) the climate was so harsh that erosion removed most of the rocks that formed during
the Precambrian.
C) radioactivity was not measurable during the Precambrian
D) we have not yet been able to establish the half-lives for radioactive elements that
existed in the Precambrian
E) there are very few fossils preserved in Precambrian rocks
The Appalachian Mountains formed as a result of ________.
A) the break-up of Pangaea
B) the collision of North America and Africa
C) the collision of North America and Europe
D) the collision of Greenland and Norway
E) the initial formation of Pangaea
What type of basin would be most likely to contain large amounts of sediments derived
from a volcanic source?
A) a continental interior basin
B) a passive continental margin
C) a forearc basin
D) a strike-slip basin
Earth’s core, mantle, and crust formed during the ________.
A) Archaean
B) Proterozoic
C) Paleozoic
D) Hadean
E) Tertiary
How do freezing, thawing, wetting, and drying contribute to soil creep?
A) The soil becomes much weaker when dry and frozen.
B) Gravity exerts a much stronger force when the soil is wet and thawed.
C) The soil expands and contracts, lifting particles and dropping them a slight distance
downslope.
D) Eventually, these cause the soil and regolith to suddenly slide down the slope.
The most obvious evidence of a Plate boundary where two plates move apart is(are)
________.
A) earthquakes
B) strike-slip faults on the sea floor
C) mountain building along the plate boundary
D) upwelling of hot material from the mantle
This term is used to describe clouds that produce precipitation.
A) cumulus
B) stratus
C) cirrus
D) nimbo
Fracture zone associated with transform boundaries are ________.
A) active faults
B) inactive faults
C) fractures in the seafloor that did not become faults
D) topographic markers of where Pangaea originally broke apart
There are websites that predict solar weather, or essentially the impact of the solar wind
on earth (in one sense, our planet is within the outer atmosphere of the sun). How is this
possible when the speed of light is a fixed quantity?
A) The solar wind does not travel at the speed of light, so it arrives much later than
when a solar event is observed.
B) The solar weather is related to sunspots, and they only affect Earth when the
sunspots are in line with the earth, so knowing the solar rotation speed, you can predict
when sunspots are aimed at Earth.
C) The solar forecast is like weather forecasting on Earth; solar scientists observe
phenomena as they form and grow on the sun, and predict their timing
D) The solar weather effect on Earth depends largely on the earth’s magnetic field and
its interaction with Earth weather, so scientists predict variations in both.
What is a typical rate for seafloor spreading?
A) 2 cm/s
B) 2 cm/hr
C) 2 cm/day
D) 2 cm/yr
As the solar system began forming, the first materials to condense into small particles
were ________ and nickel.
A) oxygen
B) silicon
C) nitrogen
D) carbon
E) none of these
The largest of Earth’s spheres is the ________.
A) hydrosphere
B) atmosphere
C) geosphere
D) biosphere
Wood floats in water, 1 gram is defined as the mass of 1 cubic centimeter of water, a
cubic centimeter of quartz weighs ~2.65 g and a cubic centimeter of galena weighs
about 7.5 g. The density of these materials from highest to lowest is ________.
A) wood, quartz, galena, water
B) galena, quartz, water, wood
C) galena, quartz, wood, water
D) water, wood, quartz, galena
In the Cretaceous period of earth history there is clear evidence that the climate was
much warmer than today. It was so warm that areas near the pole had tropical
vegetation like palm trees, and there was almost certainly no sea ice and glaciers
probably only existed at very high altitude. This produced widespread anoxia (stagnant,
no-oxygen condition) on the floor of the oceans. From your knowledge of ocean
circulation, which of the following explanations could account for the anoxia?
A) The greenhouse affect made planktonic algae grow so fast that they filled the ocean
with algae, stagnating the ocean.
B) The greenhouse affect led to so much CO2 in the atmosphere that animals all died
from lack of oxygen, stagnating the oceans.
C) The lack of polar sea ice stopped any thermohaline deep circulation in the oceans,
stratifying the water column to produce anoxia in the deep sea.
D) The water got so warm it couldn’t hold any oxygen, stagnating the water column.
Mt. St. Helens in the U. S. and Mt. Fujiyama in Japan are examples of ________.
A) cinder cones
B) shield volcanos
C) composite volcanos
D) calderas