Beaches are locations along the shoreline where excess sediment has accumulated on
shore.
Continental shelves are valuable locations that support important fishing grounds.
The inner planets are the smaller rocky planets that are close in proximity to the sun.
An oceanic plate that has been permeated by water before subduction will trigger
melting sooner than a “dry” oceanic plate.
Freshwater is less dense than saltwater.
Creep is a slow type of mass wasting that moves at a rate of a few centimeters per year.
Rupture along a fault can stop if there is a large kink in the fault.
Salt wedging is a weathering process that is more common in humid areas than arid.
The fossil record is biased toward preserving organisms with hard parts.
Postfire debris flows are most common in the first 2 years after a fire.
Volcanic island arc activity is short-lived and as a result will only produce tiny islands.
The inner core and the outer core are compositionally the same. The major difference
between them is the states of matter in which they exist.
Climate is the state of the atmosphere at a given time in a given place over a short
period of time.
Igneous rocks with an andesitic composition are found along volcanic island arcs.
Water erosional features are commonly found on the moon, particularly in the highland
areas.
Rapid mass-wasting events do not always need a trigger.
Thick deposits of soil over bedrock are more stable than thin deposits over bedrock.
Sandstorms should be more accurately referred to as siltstorms because most sediment
carried by wind for long distances is actually silt-sized.
Accreted terranes that are adjacent to each other will generally have similar geologic
histories until the point where they accrete. After that, their geologic histories will
differ.
The Basin and Range Province of the American southwest is known for containing
regions that display each stand of landscape evolution in an arid climate.
When a glacier is in retreat, the ice can flow from the Zone of Ablation to the Zone of
Accumulation.
Shales are well cemented because of the high number of pore spaces.
Geologic hazards are natural processes.
Short-range earthquake predictions are reliable and widely used to get people to safety.
The atmospheric pressures on Venus are approximately 90 times greater than those on
Earth, which had the ability to crush spacecraft sent there in the 1970s.
A kame is an ice-contact deposit.
The acidity levels of the early oceans were much lower than today, so it took 4 billion
years of weathering in order to reach the level of salinity present in the oceans today.
Rockfalls are the primary way in which talus slopes are built and maintained.
Ferromagnesian minerals have a higher specific gravity than nonferromagnesian
minerals.
The flowering plants that developed during the Cenozoic were gymnosperms.
In the D” layer, the portion of the mantle closest to the core-mantle Boundary is
hypothesized to be partially melted because the S-wave velocities decrease by 30%
when passing through it.
The Challenger Deep of the Mariana Trench is named for the H.M.S Challenger, the
ship that first measured it.
The magnetic poles roughly correspond to the locations of the geographic poles.
Most metamorphic rocks near the Earth’s surface are derived from three common
sedimentary rocks. Which three?
A) Conglomerate, graywacke, and arkose
B) Shale, quartz sandstone, and limestone
C) Basalt, travertine, and claystone
D) Quartz sandstone, arkose, and siltstone
What effect will roots have on a sedimentary rock?
A) Root tips will promote cementation, making the rock stronger.
B) Roots will weaken the cement, splitting the rock apart.
C) Roots will wrap around the sediments, holding them tight as the rock cements.
D) Roots will add cement to unconsolidated sediments to create a rock.
What bodies of water are formed when a stagnant block of glacial ice near the terminus
becomes partly or completely buried in glacial sediments, eventually melting to create a
lake?
A) Tarns
B) Paternosters
C) Braided streams
D) Kettle lakes
What process creates desert blowouts?
A) Moving water
B) Evaporation
C) Herd animals pawing at the ground
D) Deflation by wind
________ is the process by which new mineral grains larger than the original mineral
grains form as a result of metamorphic heat.
A) Recrystallization
B) Foliation
C) Dissolution
D) Metasomatism
Compare and contrast the formation of a primary magma to that of a secondary magma.
How does each form?
Notice the part of this image labeled “continued trench rollback.” What is happening in
“trench rollback”?
A) Old, dense lithosphere sinks, creating slab suction that pulls the upper plate toward
the trench.
B) Continued tension on the plate results in rifting, dropping blocks of continental crust.
C) The trench gets deeper as the descending plate locks against the overriding plate and
pulls it down.
D) Rising magma plutons melt the base of the lithosphere to create a depression.
Soil develops in response to interactions between which Earth spheres?
A) Hydrosphere and atmosphere
B) Geosphere, atmosphere, and biosphere
C) Geosphere, hydrosphere, and atmosphere
D) Biosphere, atmosphere, geosphere, and hydrosphere
You are watching TV with a friend when there is a special bulletin about a city in
California being devastated by an earthquake. The news anchor reports that the
epicenter of the earthquake is 45 miles east of Los Angeles. How would you explain the
definition of the epicenter to your geologically impaired friend?
A) The exact location on the fault where slippage occurs
B) The contact point between two tectonic plates
C) The location on Earth’s surface directly above the point of slippage
D) The location of migrating magma in the crust
The Laurentide Ice Sheet is an example of ________ glaciation.
A) alpine
B) valley
C) continental
D) ice cap
What is the definition of lithification?
A) The breakdown of materials due to exposure to the elements
B) The process by which sediments are made into rock
C) The transportation of sediments from their place of origin
D) The crystallization of minerals through cooling
Compare and contrast western and eastern North America during the Cenozoic Era.
What desert feature is visible in this image?
A) Playa lake
B) Sand dune
C) Desert pavement
D) Yardang
What kind of streamflow is present in this image?
A) Braided flow
B) Laminar flow
C) Turbulent flow
D) Overland flow
What is the source of water for hydrothermal metamorphism?
A) Groundwater percolating from the surface
B) Fluids coming off magma plutons
C) Black smokers sucking seawater into the subsurface
D) Groundwater from the surface and fluids from magma plutons
Samples from the seafloor around the Mid-Atlantic Ridge and the East Pacific Rise
show that both areas have been creating new material in the last five million years.
Samples from the East Pacific Rise show the five-million-year-old seafloor is three
times as wide as similarly aged material from the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. What does this
say about the rate of seafloor spreading in the East Pacific?
A) The seafloor at both sites is growing at the same rate.
B) The seafloor at the East Pacific Rise is growing more slowly.
C) The seafloor at the Mid-Atlantic is growing more quickly.
D) The seafloor at the Mid-Atlantic is growing more slowly.
What is the outcrop pattern of a plunging syncline?
A) The layers will close to a point in the direction of plunge.
B) The layers will be oriented parallel to each other.
C) The layers will intersect at right angles.
D) The layers will open up in the direction of plunge.
The ________ explains the formation of the solar system by describing how the sun and
planets formed from a rotating cloud of interstellar gases.
A) transit of Venus
B) escape velocity
C) nebular theory
D) theory of plate tectonics
Which size(s) of sediment commonly make up most of wind’s suspended load?
A) Sand
B) Clay
C) Silt
D) Gravel
According to the octet rule, atoms tend to gain, lose, or share electrons until they are
surrounded by ________ valence electrons.
A) 2
B) 6
C) 8
D) 10
What role does water play in generating magma?
A) Water lubricates the path for subducting plates, allowing them to subduct deeper.
B) Water lowers the density of the rock, allowing it to melt.
C) Water cools the rock, preventing melting.
D) Water lowers the melting temperature of the rock, allowing it to melt.
________ can produce intricately folded rocks.
A) Differential stress
B) Confining pressure
C) Heat
D) Hydrothermal fluids
E) Cold surface water
Which direction was the ice flowing (Hint: It is bedrock.)
A) Bottom to top
B) Left to right
C) Top to bottom
D) Right to left
The most volcanically active body in the solar system is ________.
A) Mars
B) Io
C) Ganymede
D) Earth
Match the correct terms to their correct positions in the solar system.
A) Kuiper Belt
B) Uranus
C) Neptune
D) Mars
E) Saturn
F) Venus
G) Earth
H) Sun
I) Jupiter
J) Mercury
1. A
2. B
4. D
5. E
6. F
7. G
8. H
9. I
10. J
What localized lowering of the water table is present in this figure?
A) Ground subsidence
B) Cone of depression
C) Sinkhole
D) Hot spring
________ is the process where materials separate into different layers due to density.
A) Shearing
B) Differentiation
C) Phase change
D) Tensional stress
What kind of temperature and pressure conditions will exist in a burial metamorphism
environment?
A) Low temperature and low pressure
B) Low temperature and high pressure
C) High temperature and low pressure
D) High temperature and high pressure
What substance makes up much of the interior layers of Neptune, marked with an
arrow?
A) Hydrogen/helium
B) Ice
C) Rock
D) Methane
________ is the portion of groundwater that is retained as a film on particle and rock
surfaces and in tiny openings in the subsurface.
A) Surface tension
B) Infiltration
C) Specific retention
D) Capacity
Identify the mass-wasting event in this image.
A) Slide
B) Lahar
C) Mudflow
D) Earthflow
Which of the following would be a good cap rock for oil and natural gas deposits?
A) Shale
B) Sandstone
C) Limestone
D) Conglomerate
You are an archaeologist researching artifacts left behind by Francisco Pizzaro’s
conquest of Peru in the 1530s. In order to confirm the authenticity of the leather
artifacts, you are performing radiometric dating using an isotope pair that has a half-life
of 250 years. In order for the artifacts to date back to the time of Pizzaro’s conquest,
approximately how much original radioactive isotope must be left in the artifacts?
A) 50%
B) 25%
C) 75%
D) 12.5%
Which state of the following has deposits of anthracite coal?
A) Wyoming
B) Pennsylvania
C) Illinois
D) Michigan
Match the volcano name with the volcano type for the following questions. Choices
will be used more than once.
1. Mount Hood
2. Mauna Kea
3. Parcutin
4. Cerro Negro
5. Newberry Volcano
6. Mount Etna
A) Cinder cone
B) Composite cone
C) Shield volcano
List three cycles that recycle material repeatedly and are part of the Earth system.
Compare the greenhouse effect on Earth to that on planetary bodies such as the Moon
and Venus.
Thermal expansion and thermal contraction are two processes where the presence of
heat will weather a rock, breaking it into smaller pieces. In which category of
weathering would you expect to find thermal expansion and contraction? Why?
How did the 1815 eruption of Tambora have global implications for climate change?
Was this temporary or permanent?
How will mantle-derived magma change when it ponds against crustal rocks?
Assuming that humans went extinct today, do you think that they would be good index
fossils? Why or why not?
How would coastline composition (rocky versus sandy) differ from the coastline of the
Pacific Northwest and that of the Carolinas?
A severe drought in 2012 devastated much of the United States, causing crop failure,
lower stream levels, and the drying and cracking of the ground. Obviously, a great deal
of water was needed to end this drought. At the end of August of that year, Hurricane
Isaac made landfall along the Gulf Coast of Louisiana and Mississippi and proceeded to
move up the Mississippi River and across central and northern Illinois by August 31
and September 1, precipitating large volumes of rain as it moved. How did the transit of
Hurricane Isaac affect the drought (Did it end the drought?)? How would groundwater
levels change? Explain your answers.
Why is the Earth heated primarily by radiation from the Earth’s surface?
List three major energy resources that are derived from sedimentary rocks.
Explain how the environmental conditions in the headwaters of the Colorado River
affect the longevity of the river as it moves through the desert.
Despite not seeing the severe tectonic forces of the Rocky Mountains, the interior states
of Illinois and Michigan have basins (the Illinois and Michigan basins). However, these
basins formed in a different way. Explain how the Illinois and Michigan basins formed
without significant tectonic influence.
What are the three categories of sedimentary rocks?
Explain the process of accretionary wedge.
Are humans part of the Earth system? List your evidence.