Introduction to Earth Science Review
Questions
Course Introduction
Introduction to Earth Science offers a comprehensive overview of our planets structure, processes, and history. The course explores fundamental concepts related to geology, meteorology, oceanography, and astronomy, illustrating how these disciplines interact to shape the Earths environment. Students will examine topics including the rock cycle, plate tectonics, weather systems, natural resources, and environmental issues. Emphasis is placed on the scientific methods used to investigate the Earth and its dynamic systems, fostering an understanding of the planets past, present, and future. This foundational course provides critical insights for further studies in environmental science, geography, and related fields.
Recommended Textbook
Foundations of Earth Science 7th Edition by Frederick K. Lutgens
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Chapter 1: Matter and Minerals
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Sample Questions
Q1) Which of the following has the highest specific gravity?
A)styrofoam
B)water
C)halite
D)gold
Answer: D
Q2) An atom's mass number is 13 and its atomic number is 6. How many neutrons are in its nucleus?
A)19
B)13
C)7
D)6
Answer: C
Q3) In Earth's crust, economic minerals are just as abundant as rock-forming minerals.
A)True
B)False
Answer: False
Q4) The most common group of minerals in Earth's crust are the ________. Answer: silicates
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Chapter 2: Rocks: Materials of the Solid Earth
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Q1) Discuss how the following variables influence the rate of weathering: Mineral content, climate, and topography.
Answer: More stable minerals, like quartz, are more resistant to weathering. Minerals that are less stable (less at equilibrium at Earth surface conditions)are less resistant to weathering; they fall apart more rapidly. Hence a tombstone made of granite will last longer than a tombstone made of marble or worse, rock salt! Warmer, wetter climates encourage weathering, as water helps facilitate chemical reactions like dissolution, oxidation, and hydrolysis, and more heat means more energy to drive those reactions. Steeper slopes are more likely to shed any sediment that gets produced, meaning that physical weathering will dominate over chemical weathering. Shallower slopes tend to see less movement of the sediment that results from weathering, resulting in thick sections of "rotted" (chemically weathered)bedrock.
Q2) The reason we see so much mud and sand along the shore of the land is that clay minerals and quartz are ________ at Earth's surface.
Answer: stable
Q3) A detrital sedimentary rock dominated by sand is a(n)________.
Answer: sandstone
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Page 4
Chapter 3: Landscapes Fashioned by Water
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Sample Questions
Q1) Which of the following is not a form of mass wasting?
A)debris flow
B)slump
C)rockslide
D)transpiration
Answer: D
Q2) In parts of the High Plains aquifer, water is being pumped from the ground faster than it is replenished. This has resulted in the water table dropping significantly.
A)True
B)False
Answer: True
Q3) The downslope movement of rock or soil due to the influence of gravity is
A)weathering
B)erosion
C)mass wasting
D)exfoliation
Answer: C
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Chapter 4: Glacial and Arid Landscapes
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Q1) A(n)________ a thick, flowing ice mass that forms over hundreds or thousands of years.
Q2) The Basin and Range region of the western United States is characterized by interior drainage with streams eroding uplifted mountain blocks and depositing sediment in interior basins.
A)True
B)False
Q3) The most recent Ice Age occurred during the Cretaceous period.
A)True
B)False
Q4) A glacier's downstream end ________.
A)is where new ice is added through compaction of snowfall
B)is in the zone of wastage
C)is where the fastest flow occurs
D)is where cirques get carved out
Q5) A sinuous ridge composed of sand and gravel is a(n)________; It is a deposit made by streams flowing in tunnels within or beneath glacial ice.
Q6) Between wind, water, and glacial ice, ________ is easily the least effective agent of erosion.
Page 6
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Chapter 5: Plate Tectonics: A Scientific Revolution Unfolds
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Q1) A(n)________ is a long-lived, stationary, magma source deep in the mantle, well below the base of the lithosphere.
Q2) The ________ today marks the location of the rift along which Africa separated from South America.
Q3) Iceland sits on a(n)________ plate boundary.
Q4) The area of crust directly above a rising mantle plume is a(n)________.
A)convergent plate boundary
B)Curie point
C)hot spot
D)asthenosphere
Q5) Lithospheric plates can consist of which of the following components?
A)continental crust, oceanic crust, and ocean water
B)continental crust, lithospheric mantle, and asthenospheric mantle
C)continental crust, lithospheric mantle, and oceanic crust
D)continental crust only, NOT oceanic crust
Q6) Hawaii is the oldest island of the Hawaiian Island chain.
A)True
B)False
Q7) The San Andreas fault in California is a good example of a(n)________ plate boundary.
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Chapter 6: Restless Earth: Earthquakes, Geologic Structures, and Mountain Building
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Q1) ________ are accreted crustal fragments that have distinct geologic histories from that of the adjoining crust.
Q2) Earth's core is interpreted to consist mainly of ________.
A)granite
B)basalt
C)iron and nickel
D)mostly solid rock with a small amount of melt due to the temperature-pressure regime
Q3) The difference between a continent and a microcontinent is ________.
Q4) The mountains and valleys of the Basin and Range Province of western United States formed in response to tensional stresses and normal faulting.
A)True
B)False
Q5) Sediment scraped off the subducting plate builds up in a(n)________. A nice example of this can be seen in central California's coast ranges.
Q6) How do terranes relate the growth of continental crust over geologic time? What region of North America illustrates this process well?
Q7) ________ are brittle structures.
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Chapter 7: Volcanoes and Other Igneous Activity
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Sample Questions
Q1) A high viscosity means that a lava is very fluid or runny.
A)True
B)False
Q2) Volcanoes are generally not preserved in the geologic rock record as they are eroded away. However, the various materials erupted from volcanoes are often found preserved in the rock record. How could you infer what type of volcano erupted in a given area based on the type of volcanic deposits now found as layers of rock? Give specific examples and briefly discuss if some materials may be linked to different types of volcanoes.
Q3) Hawaii is located on a plate boundary.
A)True
B)False
Q4) Lava tubes would be more likely to be form at a shield volcano like Kilauea than at a composite volcano like Mount St. Helens.
A)True
B)False
Q5) ________ are pyroclastic materials ejected from volcanoes as liquid droplets; they cool and form a solid crust before they land.
Q6) The Year Without A Summer (1816)was triggered by ________.
Page 9
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Chapter 8: Geologic Time
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Sample Questions
Q1) Why isn't the Precambrian more finely divided into sub-divisions like periods and epochs?
A)Fewer and less diverse fossils exist in Precambrian rocks.
B)Precambrian rocks don't have radioactive isotopes in them.
C)Geologists just don't care about the Precambrian the way they do about more recent time periods.
D)The Precambrian lacks the igneous rocks that are most useful for radiometric dating.
Q2) Catastrophism and uniformitarianism differed in which way?
A)Catastrophism argued for a young Earth, while uniformitarianism argued for an old Earth.
B)Catastrophism emphasized rapid change, while uniformitarianism argued for slow, gradual change being more important.
C)both of the above
D)none of the above
Q3) The remains or traces of prehistoric life are called ________.
Q4) We now live in the ________ era.
Q5) When radioactive potassium-40 decays, the stable daughter isotope ________ is produced.
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Chapter 9: Oceans: The Last Frontier
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Q1) The average salinity of seawater is 3.5%.
A)True
B)False
Q2) A deep-sea fan at the base of a continental slope is more likely to be covered with thick turbidite layers than a mid-ocean ridge.
A)True
B)False
Q3) Manganese nodules do not accumulate in shallow water.
A)True
B)False
Q4) Which one of the following is NOT part of the continental margin?
A)continental shelf
B)continental rise
C)continental slope
D)continental trench
Q5) Where is the continental rise?
A)at the top of a mid-ocean ridge
B)at the top of the continental slope
C)between an abyssal plain and continental slope
D)at the seaward edge of a deep ocean trench
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Chapter 10: The Restless Ocean
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Sample Questions
Q1) Marine terraces in coastal California are evidence that this coastal area is emergent.
A)True
B)False
Q2) Large estuaries are more common on a(n)________ coastline.
A)emergent
B)submergent
C)stable
D)eroding
Q3) Cold currents can trigger desertification because they stabilize air that might otherwise rise and generate precipitation.
A)True
B)False
Q4) Longshore currents and beach drift ________.
A)move in opposite directions
B)both have net movement that is parallel to the shore
C)are oriented at 90° to each other
D)are found only in deep water, and never close to the shore
Q5) The ________ is the distance the wind has traveled across open water.
Q6) Turbulent water created by breaking waves is known as ________.
Page 12
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Chapter 11: Heating the Atmosphere
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Sample Questions
Q1) Closely spaced isotherms indicate a high ________.
Q2) Which one of the following is the most abundant gas in the atmosphere?
A)carbon dioxide
B)ozone
C)oxygen
D)nitrogen
Q3) 1)air
2)environmental lapse rate
3)weather
4)diffused light
5)radiosonde
6)aerosols
7)infrared radiation
8)climate
Q4) A field covered with several inches of freshly-fallen snow has a high albedo.
A)True
B)False
Q5) Visible light makes up about one-half of the electromagnetic spectrum.
A)True
B)False
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Chapter 12: Moisture, Clouds, and Precipitation
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Sample Questions
Q1) The collision-coalescence process generates big raindrops that sweep up smaller cloud droplets, thus growing bigger. Potentially, they grow so large that frictional drag from the surrounding air causes the raindrop to break apart into a larger number of smaller droplets.
A)True
B)False
Q2) When warm moist air moves over a cold surface, ________ fog may result.
A)advection
B)radiation
C)upslope
D)steam
Q3) A temperature inversion occurs when ________.
A)higher, cooler air acts like a lid, keeping warmer, lower air in place
B)higher, warmer air acts like a lid, keeping cooler, lower air in place
C)a warm front collides with a cold front
D)localized convective lifting occurs
Q4) Explain how perspiring cools the skin.
Q5) Any open container having a consistent cross-sectional area throughout can be used as a(n)________.
Page 14
Q6) ________ occurs when warm air is forced up and over a mass of cooler air.
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Chapter 13: The Atmosphere in Motion
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Sample Questions
Q1) ________ of air occurs near Earth's surface around an anticyclone.
Q2) Chinook and Santa Ana winds are warm, dry winds created when air descends the leeward side of a mountain and ________ by compression.
Q3) The faster the wind speed, the ________ the deflection of winds due to the Coriolis force.
Q4) Polar easterlies may dominate Alaska's prevailing winds, and NE trade winds may dominate in Hawaii, but ________ dominate the prevailing winds of the "lower 48" (contiguous)United States.
Q5) The average position of the polar jet stream, and hence the paths followed by cyclones and anticyclones, migrates ________ with the approach of winter.
Q6) In general, regions influenced by high pressure, with its associated subsidence and divergent winds, experience ________ conditions.
Q7) An instrument that measures air pressure using a partially evacuated chamber is called a(n)________.
Q8) Above a height of a few kilometers, the Coriolis effect is equal to and opposite the pressure gradient force, which results in ________ winds that blow parallel to the isobars.
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Chapter 14: Weather Patterns and Severe Weather
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Sample Questions
Q1) Describe "Lake effect" snows in the Great Lakes region and how they form.
Q2) A cyclone is ________.
A)another name for a tornado
B)another name for a hurricane
C)another name for the low-pressure systems that take several days to travel across North America from west to east
D)the term for circulation around any low-pressure center, no matter how large or intense it is
Q3) When a hurricane moves onto land, it rapidly loses its punch; that is, the storm declines in intensity. Which of the factors listed below contribute to this loss of storm energy?
A)friction
B)lack of warm, moist air
C)heating from below by the land surface
D)both A and B
Q4) Hurricanes are characterized by ________.
A)intense convective (thunderstorm)activity and strong cyclonic circulation
B)intense convective (thunderstorm)activity and strong anticyclonic circulation
C)mild convective (thunderstorm)activity and strong cyclonic circulation
D)mild convective (thunderstorm)activity and strong anticyclonic circulation
Page 16
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Chapter 15: The Nature of the Solar System
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Sample Questions
Q1) The largest known volcano in the solar system is ________.
A)Mauna Loa, Hawaii, on Earth
B)Maat Mons on Venus
C)Solfatara on Jupiter
D)Olympus Mons on Mars
Q2) How is Earth unique as compared to other planets in our solar system? How is it similar? And finally, what geologic information might we obtain by visiting Mars or Venus that would further link Earth to these planets?
Q3) Why are meteorites a possible source of information regarding the origin and composition of Earth?
Q4) ________ are small, extraterrestrial particles that glow brightly and burn up as they travel through Earth's atmosphere.
A)Meteoroids
B)Moons
C)Meteorites
D)Asteroids
Q5) In the Ptolemaic system, planets orbited in small circles called ________ while revolving along large circles called ________.
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Chapter 16: Beyond Our Solar System
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Q1) "Red shift" refers to the tendency of stars to cool over time and thus to become red in color.
A)True
B)False
Q2) The Milky Way is in a galactic cluster called the Local Group.
A)True
B)False
Q3) A light-year is ________.
A)a long time
B)the distance light travels in one (Earth)year
C)a kind of super-dense star near the end of its life-cycle
D)the wavelength of electromagnetic radiation between ultraviolet and infrared
Q4) Smallest white dwarves have the largest mass.
A)True
B)False
Q5) How do we calculate or determine the distances to stars? What units do we use the distances between stars and/or galaxies?
Q6) A star's size (volume)is directly proportional to its mass.
A)True
B)False
Page 18
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