Geoscience Fundamentals
Review Questions
Course Introduction
Geoscience Fundamentals provides an introduction to the essential principles and concepts that govern the study of Earth and its processes. This course covers topics such as the formation and structure of the Earth, plate tectonics, the rock cycle, minerals, surface processes, and the history of the planet. Students will gain an understanding of geological materials, earth systems, and the dynamic forces that shape the planet over time. Through lectures, laboratory exercises, and field observations, the course equips students with foundational knowledge crucial for further studies in geology, environmental science, and related disciplines.
Recommended Textbook
Earth An Introduction to Physical Geology 4th Canadian Edition by Edward J. Tarbuck
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Chapter 1: An Introduction to Geology and Plate Tectonics
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Q1) ________ was never proposed as evidence supporting the existence of the Pangaea supercontinent.
A)Geometric fit between South America and Africa
B)Islands of Proterozoic rocks along the Mid-Atlantic Ridge
C)Late Paleozoic glacial features
D)The Glossopteris flora
Answer: B
Q2) The San Andreas fault in California is a good example of a ________ plate boundary.
Answer: transform
Q3) According to the rock cycle, any type of rock (igneous, sedimentary, or metamorphic)may be transformed into another type of rock, given enough time.
A)True
B)False
Answer: True
Q4) The ________ is the solid, rocky shell between the crust and outer core.
Answer: mantle
Q5) What is the average density of continental crust?
Answer: 2.7 grams per cubic centimetre
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Chapter 2: Minerals: The Building Blocks of Rocks
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Q1) What are the two most abundant elements, which by themselves account for approximately 75% by weight of the Earth's crust?
Answer: oxygen, silicon
Q2) Most ________ minerals are microscopic crystals of sheet silicates that form by the chemical weathering of feldspars, pyroxenes, amphiboles and micas.
A)carbonate
B)clay
C)hydroxide
D)salt
Answer: B
Q3) Most glasses and some minerals exhibit a type of fracture characterized by nested and curved, crack surfaces.What term describes this property?
Answer: conchoidal
Q4) What ferromagnesian silicate mineral is named for its green colour?
Answer: olivine
Q5) The physical property denoting a mineral's tendency to crack along parallel, planar surfaces is known as what?
Answer: cleavage
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Chapter 3: Igneous Rocks
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Sample Questions
Q1) A ________ is an open cavity in a volcanic rock that was filled by a gas bubble when the lava was still mainly liquid.
A)porphyrocryst
B)vesicle
C)phenocryst
D)xenocryst
Answer: B
Q2) Olivine and quartz commonly crystallize together from mafic (basaltic)magmas.
A)True
B)False
Answer: False
Q3) The size, shape, and geometric arrangement of mineral grains in igneous rocks is called ________ and it indicates ________.
A)aphanitic form, how much water was present in the melt
B)igneous geometry, the original % of partial melting
C)geomorphology, depth of origin for the original magma
D)texture, the environmental conditions in which the rock formed
Answer: D
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Chapter 4: Volcanoes and Volcanic Processes
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Q1) What term describes a liquid's characteristic stiffness and resistance to flow?
Q2) What are massive, gently sloping volcanoes built of successive, mafic lava flows?
A)shield
B)composite volcanoes
C)cinder cones
D)stratospheric
Q3) ________ the big volcanoes of Hawaii
A)shield volcanoes
B)composite/stratovolcanoes
C)cinder cones
Q4) Gas rich andesitic magmas generate composite volcanoes made up of ________.
A)abundant basalt dykes and thick accumulations of low viscosity flows
B)conical shaped lava flows
C)abundant coarse pyroclastics and short, thick, viscous lava flows
D)multiple overlapping rhyolite domes rimming a central caldera
Q5) Volcanic earthquakes are often strong enough to destroy buildings.
A)True
B)False
Q6) Which type of volcanoes are found along the Cascade and Andean Ranges?
Page 6
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Chapter 5: Weathering and Soil
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Q1) Quartz weathers readily to aluminum-rich clay minerals.
A)True
B)False
Q2) Choose the option that does not fit the pattern.
A)oxidation
B)dissolution
C)hydrolysis
D)sheeting
Q3) Which kind of weathering involves the destruction and decomposition of the rock-forming minerals?
Q4) Hydrolysis is ________ to weaken or destroy the mineral lattice.
A)the dissolution of minerals by water
B)the replacement of mineral cations by hydrogen ions from solution
C)the conversion of useless minerals to hydrogen gas
D)the chemical removal of bonded hydrogens
Q5) Caliche is an excessive accumulation of ________.
A)calcite in the E horizon of a pedalfer
B)clays in the A horizon of a laterite
C)clays in hardpan layers of a pedocal
D)calcium carbonate in the B horizon of a pedocal
Page 7
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Chapter 6: Sedimentary Rocks
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Q1) What is the name for the chemical diagenetic change that accompanies the change from sediments to sedimentary rocks?
Q2) The study of depositional environments in sedimentary rocks is critical to understanding Earth's history.What features or characteristics of sedimentary rocks are unique to particular environments? What features are found in a variety of environments and are therefore less definitive for interpreting paleoenvironments?
Q3) A white and pink hard sedimentary rock has abundant thin layers and is composed of microfossils of radiolaria made of SiO<sub>2</sub>.What would you call it?
Q4) Most chemical sediments derive from ________.
A)industrial waste from multi-national corporations
B)the soluble products of weathering, carried in solution to a warm, evaporating basin
C)detrital minerals that are a single, pure, inorganic compound
D)accumulations of organic matter
Q5) Which variety of limestone consists mainly of sand-sized, mostly spherical grains of calcium carbonate precipitated in shallow, marine waters?
Q6) Red, brown and orange sandstones are cemented by oxides of what element?
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Page 8
Chapter 7: Metamorphism and Metamorphic Rocks
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Sample Questions
Q1) Choose the option that does not fit the pattern.
A)aureole
B)hornfels
C)marble
D)schist
Q2) Choose the option that does not fit the pattern.
A)porphyroblastic
B)slaty cleavage
C)schistosity
D)gneissic texture
Q3) How would you correctly refer to the metamorphic grade of a rock that contains bundles of fibrous sillimanite along with pyroxene and sanidine as its highest temperature minerals such as a coarse grained granulite facies gneiss?
A)"S grade"
B)high grade > 600° C
C)intermediate grade
D)low grade < 200° C
Q4) Under what metamorphic conditions and in what rock types would you expect to find muscovite and chlorite?
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Chapter 8: Geologic Time
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Q1) Which of the following denotes the investigative process by which geologists identify and match sedimentary strata and other rocks of the same ages in different areas?
A)strata typing
B)cross-cutting
C)radioactive intuition
D)correlation
Q2) What is the age of the Earth accepted by most scientists today?
A)540 billion years
B)4.6 million years
C)4.6 billion years
D)about 4600 thousand years
Q3) ________ is placing rocks in their proper sequence of formation by their contact relationships.
Q4) Choose the option that does not fit the pattern.
A)Superposition
B)Correlation
C)Original Horizontality
D)Inclusions
Q5) An unstable radioactive ________ isotope decays to a stable ________ isotope.
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Chapter 9: Crustal Deformation
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Q1) Which is not evidence of former structural deformation or major tectonic forces that affected rocks of continental interiors?
A)massively folded metamorphic rock units with structures that resemble putty
B)faults which juxtapose vastly different rock types like deep lower crustal granites and fluvial deposits containing coal beds
C)extensive, flat lying younger beds disconformably overlying older strata
D)extinct marine fossils found thousands of metres above sea level in tilted strata in the mountains
Q2) The Great Rift Valley of East Africa is characterized by ________.
A)mainly thrust faulting as Africa collides with Arabia
B)a belt of anticlinal and synclinal folding formed by Africa's collision with Madagascar
C)a valley formed from a series of grabens, nearly 6000 kilometres long and flanked by tilted horsts, formed mainly by normal faulting as East Africa begins to split apart
D)mainly transform faulting along zones connecting the rift with the Red Sea
Q3) List two familiar substances that exhibit brittle behaviour and two other substances that exhibit ductile behaviour under ordinary strain rates (conditions).
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Chapter 10: Earthquakes and Earth's Interior
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Q1) The time between the first P-wave and S-wave arrivals is a measure of the distance from a receiving station to the epicentre of the earthquake.
A)True
B)False
Q2) The ________ is the seismic discontinuity that forms the boundary between the crust and mantle.
A)Mojo
B)Moto
C)Mono
D)Moho
Q3) What is the main reason that ray paths of seismic waves are curved like dipping arcs, rather than proceeding along the straightest, shortest path as they pass through the whole earth?
A)The earth gets too hot and the seismic waves steer away into the shallower, colder regions.
B)The rock layers themselves are bent and sagged and the waves actually travel parallel to the distorted rock layers or beds.
C)The stiffest, most brittle rocks near the surface transmit sound waves better.
D)Velocity increases with depth.
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Chapter 11: The Ocean Floor
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Q1) In the 1870s, the ________ was involved in the first far-reaching, comprehensive study of Earth's oceans.
A)H.M.S.Beagle
B)H.M.S.Challenger
C)H.M.S.Endeavour
D)U.S.S.Enterprise
Q2) The Continental Shelf is a flooded or subsided extension of the continental crust.
A)True
B)False
Q3) ________ sediments represent weathered rock and mineral particles eroded mainly from land areas.
A)Exogenous
B)Hydrogenous
C)Terrigenous
D)Biogenous
Q4) On active continental margins, at the toe of the continental slope is there an accretionary wedge of deformed sediments, or a gradual continental rise?
Q5) How do guyots form?
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Chapter 12: Plate Tectonics: The Framework for Modern Geology
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Q1) What were Wegener's three main lines of evidence to support his continental drift hypothesis?
Q2) The lithospheric plates in modern plate tectonic theory differ significantly from Wegener's continental drift hypothesis in that ________.
A)they are significantly thinner
B)several of the largest plates include both continental and oceanic crust
C)it is the oceans that do all of the moving, not the continents
D)we now know that the plate motions are driven by massive magnetic reversals
Q3) Who proposed the notion of transform faults to explain the narrow fracture zones and thin bands of earthquakes crossing the oceanic ridge systems?
Q4) What is the cause of the magmas currently erupting in the Hawaiian Islands?
A)shallow decompression melting of a fixed mantle plume, with magmas rising through the NW-moving Pacific plate
B)flux-melting associated with subduction and a convergence between two sub-plates in the Pacific basin
C)shallow decompression melting along a mid-Pacific ridge, spreading NE-SW
D)shear melting associated with a mid-Pacific transform fault
Q5) Name two mountain belts which formed by continent-continent collisions?
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Chapter 13: Mountain Building and Continental Frameworks
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Q1) ________ refers to the floatational balance achieved between the thickness and elevation of crustal or lithospheric rocks and that of the deeper mantle.
Q2) Soft, easily-eroded strata high in a mountain range would suggest that the mountain building occurred long ago, geologically speaking, like that in the Appalachian region along the eastern margin of North America.
A)True
B)False
Q3) Choose the option that does not fit the pattern.
A)Himalayas
B)Andes
C)Appalachians
D)Urals
Q4) The elevation and uplift rate of mountain areas are determined isostatically by the densities and thicknesses of underlying rock layers all the way down to the mantle.
A)True
B)False
Q5) The ________ are a young, currently rising mountain range that resulted from continental collision.
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Chapter 14: Mass Wasting: The Work of Gravity
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Q1) What two properties of rain water and snow melt have the greatest effect on soil strength and slope stability?
A)acidity and strong dipole forces
B)electric conductivity and viscosity
C)increased lubrication and added weight
D)solvation properties and surface tension
Q2) Based on the examples and discussion in Chapter 14, what is the relationship of climate to mass wasting? Also, are certain climates more susceptible to mass wasting? Why?
Q3) When descending cohesive material moves "en masse" along a curved surface of rupture that just formed, it is termed a ________.
A)creep
B)flow
C)slump
D)sag
Q4) In rugged, youthful mountainous terrains, which is more active, mass wasting or erosion?
Q5) What is another name for swift destructive volcanic mudflows, like those formed during the 1980 Mount St.Helens eruption?
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Chapter 15: Running Water
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Q1) Saltation refers to excessive halite falling into a stream and dissolving in it.
A)True
B)False
Q2) Natural levees are constructed of machine-compacted sand and mud; artificial levees are made of concrete.
A)True
B)False
Q3) A ________ stream consists of a complex network of converging and diverging channels that weave around channel bars.
A)Straight channel
B)Meandering stream
C)Braided stream
D)Bedrock channel
Q4) Lateral cutting and deposition are important factors in floodplain development.
A)True
B)False
Q5) Where turbulent water flows around irregularities on the stream flow, ________ commonly form.
Q6) All major rivers in Canada drain into only 5-6 basins.Name three of these.
Q7) A ________ is a stream segment along its course.
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Chapter 16: Groundwater
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Q1) Who finally put to rest the false assumption that precipitation could not account for the water in springs and rivers?
Q2) The porosity of typical unconsolidated sediments and sedimentary rocks is ________.
A)10-50%
B)<0.1%
C)1-5%
D)6-9%
Q3) An artesian well is one in which ________.
A)the water is warm, fairly saline, and recharged by an affluent stream
B)pressurized groundwater rises from a deep, unsaturated aquifer C)water rises above the top of the aquifer without any pumping D)the well is horizontal and the water table is perched
Q4) When examining the geology of a region for potential aquifers, what characteristics or factors would you consider? Also, what areas (based on natural and human factors)would you avoid?
Q5) Which term denotes the physical force that pushes water though a saturated porous material?
Q6) In three words, describe the shape of the water table around a pumping well.
Q7) Cave formations like dripstone and travertine are composed of ________.
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Chapter 17: Glaciers and Glaciation
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Q1) What was the maximum lowering of sea level during the last Ice Age?
A)-100 metres
B)-20 metres
C)-38 metres
D)-85 metres
Q2) Compared to earlier or subsequent streams in the same valleys, alpine glaciers move ________ but carry ________ sediment.
A)a little slower; only finer
B)faster; less
C)mainly in the winter; mostly very coarse
D)very much slower; more
Q3) A fjord is ________.
A)a stream valley deepened by glacial erosion, that floods as sea level rises
B)a glacier-cut valley that is dammed by an end moraine and a large lake is formed
C)a glacier-cut valley which sinks below sea level due to glacial rebound after the ice melts
D)a large, kettle-pocked moraine left as an island when sea level rises following melting of the ice
Q4) What happens to global sea level during ice ages and why?
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Chapter 18: Deserts and Winds
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Q1) Where are the thickest deposits of loess found?
Q2) Stream channels in dry lands that only carry water in response to infrequent rainfall or snowmelt events are called ________.
A)ephemeral
B)playas
C)rills
D)washboards
Q3) ________ dunes have their tips facing upwind because they are commonly anchored by vegetation.
Q4) Rainshadow deserts are common in the lee of major mountain ranges such as in ________.
A)vast, dry, steppe lands like the Great Plains and central America
B)north central Africa
C)the dry valleys of the Okanagan and farther south in eastern California and Nevada
D)Europe north of the Alps
Q5) How far can dust blown from the Sahara desert be transported?
Q6) Like barchans, the tips of a parabolic dune point downwind.
A)True
B)False
Page 20
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Chapter 19: Shorelines
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Q1) Choose the option that does not fit the pattern.
A)barrier island
B)tidal delta
C)tidal flat
D)sea arch
Q2) Spits and tombolos are deposited by reversing tides or wave generated currents.
A)True
B)False
Q3) ________ are built more or less parallel to the beach.
A)Seawalls
B)Groins
C)Jetties
D)Caissons
Q4) What near-shore, shallow-water environment is characterized by finely laminated, organic-rich muds with minor interbedded fine sands?
Q5) The leeward side of a groin is ________.
A)a quiet back-water location that fills up with finely laminated muds
B)prone to receive the greatest amount of sand deposition
C)sand starved and particularly prone to erosion
D)the site of massive infections by sand-fleas
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Chapter 20: Mineral and Energy Resources
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Q1) List three, different types of fossil fuels.
Q2) How much energy does North America's only tidal power plant in Nova Scotia generate?
A)20 gigawatts
B)20 megawatts
C)20 kilowatts
D)20 milliwatts
Q3) Where is Canada's first large-scale solar park located?
A)Stone Mill's, Ontario
B)Yellowknife, Northwest Territories
C)Fredericton, New Brunswick
D)Iqaluit, Nunavut
Q4) Canada's entire uranium ore production is located in ________.
A)Elliot Lake basin, northern Ontario
B)Athabasca basin, northern Saskatchewan
C)Minas basin, northern Nova Scotia
D)Peace River basin, northern Alberta
Q5) Name the tectonic setting (original environment)for Superior-type iron ore deposits.
Q6) Name the rock that is the principal ore of aluminum.
Page 22
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