Deck 1: Earth As a System

Question 1

__________ is the collective term for the chemical and physical processes that break down rocks of any kind at Earth's surface.

A) Weathering
B) Sediment
C) Erosion
D) Lithification

Answer 1

A

Question 2

The thickest chalk deposits in the world are found in which geological system?

A) Cambrian
B) Carboniferous
C) Cretaceous
D) Triassic

Answer 2

C

Question 3

Sedimentary rocks made of the fragments of skeletons of once-living organisms are called

A) shale.
B) limestone.
C) sandstone.
D) crystalline rock.

Answer 3

B

Question 4

We can use the principle of actualism if

A) the rocks in question formed under conditions that no longer exist.
B) we can simulate or replicate the conditions under which a rock formed.
C) we know that the conditions responsible for the formation of these rocks still exist, but at such great depths beneath Earth's surface that we cannot observe them.
D) the conditions exist today, but produce the rocks over a long interval of geologic time.

Question 5

The principle of cross-cutting relationships states that

A) intrusive igneous rock is always younger than the rock it invades.
B) any structure, such as a fault, that cuts through a sequence of preexisting rocks must be younger than the host rocks.
C) fragments of one body of rock are found within another body of rock.
D) rock may be melted to form magma that later cools to form intrusive igneous rock.

Question 6

A mineral is

A) either extrusive or intrusive.
B) interlocking or bonded grains of matter.
C) a naturally occurring inorganic solid element or compound.
D) formed mainly of sand grains that are cemented together.

Question 7

In the sedimentary debris generated by the breakdown of preexisting rocks, the most common grains are

A) bits of broken sea shells.
B) particles of sand and clay.
C) salts precipitated from seawater.
D) clay minerals derived from feldspars.

Question 8

Eras are divided into formal units called

A) eras.
B) epochs.
C) periods.
D) ages.

Question 9

A __________ is a discrete body of rock of a particular type that formed in a particular way.

A) group
B) supergroup
C) formation
D) member

Question 10

The concept or philosophy of uniformitarianism is commonly summarized by saying

A) catastrophic forces dominate Earth's geological history.
B) conditions existing today cannot form rocks as in the past.
C) rocks cannot be made in the laboratory.
D) the present is the key to the past.

Question 11

The natural ordering known as fossil succession

A) cannot be used to establish the relative age of rocks that lie far apart.
B) was one of the few things that eighteenth-century surveyor William Smith did not notice about the fossils he collected.
C) reflects the sequence of organic evolution and extinction through time.
D) has to do with the characteristics of trilobites from the Early, Middle, and Late Cambrian Periods.

Question 12

Charles Lyell was NOT

A) the author of Principles of Geology, a popular 1830s geology text.
B) an advocate of ideas similar to James Hutton's regarding Earth's history.
C) an advocate of gradual forces in Earth's history.
D) a German professor of mineralogy who promoted catastrophism.

Question 13

Central to Hutton's view of Earth's history was

A) vast geologic time.
B) catastrophism.
C) volcanism.
D) supernatural floods.

Question 14

Steno's second principle says that

A) the laws of nature are inviolable and have not changed with time.
B) originally, all strata are horizontal when they form.
C) the oldest strata lie at the bottom of a succession of layers and that successively higher strata are progressively younger.
D) similar rocks that seem once to have been connected usually are.

Question 15

Which of the following is NOT an era in the Phanerozoic?

A) Cenozoic
B) Mesozoic
C) Paleozoic
D) Proterozoic

Question 16

Catastrophism is a

A) principle very similar to actualism and uniformitarianism.
B) theory advanced first by a Scottish gentleman farmer named James Hutton and expounded upon by the English naturalist and author Charles Lyell.
C) nineteenth-century concept that floods caused by supernatural forces formed most of the rocks that we see today on Earth's surface today.
D) twentieth-century philosophy about the formation of volcanic rocks.

Question 17

Actualism is the

A) idea that the geological record provides a unique perspective on human activities.
B) study of how large meteors have struck the Earth over time and thus caused mass extinctions of life.
C) notion that fundamental physical principles operating today have done so throughout Earth's history.
D) study of ripples in sand made by water and air movements, and how those features are always different from the ones made by water and air long ago.

Question 18

__________ form by the cooling of molten material to the temperature at which the molten material hardens or freezes.

A) Magmas
B) Igneous rocks
C) Minerals
D) Sedimentary rocks

Question 19

The arrangement of sedimentary rocks in discrete layers is called

A) metamorphism.
B) lithification.
C) cementation.
D) stratification.

Question 20

Naturally occurring radioactive materials

A) decay into other materials at variable rates.
B) provide us with good estimates of the actual ages of ancient rocks.
C) are produced annually, like similar to rings in a tree trunk.
D) establish relative ages of rocks on a global scale, but only in rocks with abundant fossils.

Question 21

An earthquake always begins at

A) the Moho.
B) a focus.
C) the base of the Earth's crust.
D) the top of the Earth's mantle.

Question 22

Which phrase below does NOT best describe the whole stratigraphic record?

A) Sedimentation can occur in pulses.
B) It displays evidence of episodic deposition.
C) Deposition can be catastrophic.
D) It contains few, if any, gaps in sedimentation.

Question 23

The largest reservoir for water on Earth is in

A) glaciers and ground ice.
B) groundwater (both saline and fresh).
C) oceans.
D) Earth's atmosphere.

Question 24

A type of unconformity, with eroded crystalline rock below it, is called a

A) disconformity.
B) nonconformity.
C) angular unconformity.
D) mass extinction.

Question 25

An ecosystem is

A) a cyclical change in Earth's history.
B) the direction and the nature of change in Earth's history.
C) an environment and the organisms within it.
D) a group of fossil organisms.

Question 26

The body of rock recognized in 1835 as representing the oldest system in what we call today the Phanerozoic is called

A) Devonian.
B) Silurian.
C) Ordovician.
D) Cambrian.

Question 27

Darwin provided evidence that showed life has evolved even without

A) changes in the physical environment.
B) the vast span of geological time.
C) any process akin to organic evolution.
D) preservation of the sequence of parent and descendant species in the rock record.

Question 28

Ultramafic rocks make up Earth's

A) continental crust.
B) oceanic crust.
C) mantle.
D) core.

Question 29

The location of the most powerful earthquakes that occur deep within the Earth is

A) at the Mid-Atlantic ridge.
B) on the western edge of Africa.
C) on the western edge of South America.
D) on the eastern edge of Africa.

Question 30

__________ is the process in which material that is heated deep within the asthenosphere rises to displace cooler, less dense material near the surface.

A) Convection
B) Subduction
C) Mountain building
D) Divergence