physical Geology

________________________________ are atoms with the same atomic number but different mass numbers.

isotopes

________________ is thick (30 - 75 km), old (up to 4,400,000,000 years), composed of felsic (granitic) silicates, light (~2.7 g/cm3), and is highly deformed by folding.

Continental crust

The lithosphere is made up of the upper-most mantle and the

Crust

Which is the oldest eon?

Hadean

Which geoscientist was the first to introduce the idea of geological (or deep) time?

James Hutton

Which is the thinnest physical (mechanical) layer of the Earth?

Lithosphere

In which layer of the Earth does the convection necessary for plate motion occur?

Mantle

What property of the crust allowed it to form as the exterior of Earth?

Materials that make up the crust are less dense and rose to the top

Approximately how old is the oldest oceanic crust?

180,000,000 years

Atoms of AA decay to atoms of BB with a half-life of 100,000 years. If there are 20,000 atoms of AA to begin with (and 0 atoms of BB), how long will it take for there to be 2,500 atoms of AA?

300,000 years

How old is the Earth?

4,600,000,000 years

Which scientist developed the Continental Drift hypothesis?

Alfred Wegener

The Phanerozoic eon is divided into three eras. Which of the following is NOT one of those eras?

Neogene

Which type of convergence will result in a continental volcanic arc?

Oceanic-Continental

The supercontinent in the Continental Drift hypothesis was called ___________

Pangea

Which would generally NOT be involved in determining the relative age of rock strata?

Radioactive decay

What statement best describes the difference between a rock and a mineral?

Rocks are aggregates of minerals.

The number of protons in the nucleus, which is characteristic for a particular element, is that element's

atomic number

Which of the following radioactive isotopes is most useful for dating a very young sample (<20,000 years) of wood?

carbon-14

If you wanted to search for really, really old (i.e. billions of years old) rocks to date , would you go looking for continental rocks or oceanic rocks?

continental rocks

The kind of bonding characterized by the sharing of electrons is

covalent

When molten rock cools, minerals form. This is the process of:

crystallization

Order the divisions of geologic time from the longest to the shortest

eons, eras, periods, epochs

When did geologists develop the theory of plate tectonics?

in the 1960's

What scientific avenue of investigation gave scientists the best estimate of the age of the Earth?

radiometric dating

The principal of original horizontality states that ________ .

sediments are deposited as essentially horizontal layers

The thickness of ocean sediments that are close to a mid-ocean ridge is __________ the thickness of ocean sediments that are far from mid-ocean ridges.

less than

The most common element found in the Earth's crust is ___________, followed by ____________.

oxygen, silicon

__________________ are scratches or gouges cut into bedrock by glacial abrasion.

striations

This principle is often stated as "the present is the key to the pas

Uniformitarianism

George Geologist finds that unit F contains eroded pieces of unit G. Which of the following statements is true?

Unit G is older than unit F

13.82 billion years ago, the Big Bang created the _____________ from a point source.

Universe

Which of the following is a common mineral of the sulfide group?

Galena (PbS)

What element is diamond made of?

Carbon

What geologic era do you live in?

Cenozoic

A ________ is a geographic low marking the location where oceanic lithosphere descends into the mantle. Mid-Ocean Rift

Deep-Ocean Trench

Harry Hess' theory of __________ explained how ocean crust is generated and destroyed

Seafloor Spreading

What provides us with the most information about the interior of the Earth?

Seismic energy (earthquake) waves

What is the definition of the asthenosphere?

Solid, but "plastic" region of the upper mantle

At a ________, one colliding plate will be forced beneath another because of differences in density.

Subduction Zone

What happens when an oceanic plate converges with a continental plate?

The denser oceanic plate slides under the less dense continental plate.

If the temperature in the Earth generally increases with depth, how is it possible that the Inner Core is a solid?

The pressures in the core are immense and keep it in a solid state in spite of the temperature

What was the main reason the Continental Drift hypothesis was rejected?

The scientist who proposed it could not provide a mechanism for the movement of the continents

Who is credited with developing the principle of fossil succession?

William Smith

How will the age and temperature of the subducting plate affect its angle of descent?

Younger and warmer plates will have a shallow angle of descent

A nonconformity is _________ .

a gap in the geologic record bounded below by metamorphic or igneous rocks and bounded above by sedimentary rocks

What is the polarity of a magnetic field that has the same polarity as the present magnetic field?

a normal polarity

A disconformity is ___________ .

an erosional surface between horizontal sedimentary rocks

An atom that has gained or lost electrons is

an ion

The Red Sea is an example of:

initial rifting of a continent

The Hawaiian Islands are thought to have been formed at a ____________.

mantle plume/ hot spot

The study of fossil succession allows _________

matching of similarly-aged rocks from different outcrops

A divergent boundary is a boundary between two plates that __________.

move away from each other

All minerals are __________

naturally occurring

Divergent boundaries are places where:

new ocean lithosphere is created shallow earthquakes occur basaltic magma erupts

An undeformed sedimentary layer is __________ than the layer above and _______ than the layer below.

older --- younger

The only layer of the Earth that is a liquid is the

outer core

The most abundant compositional group of minerals in the Earth's crust is the _________________

silicates

The San Andreas Fault represents a:

transform boundary

Rocks close to mid-ocean ridges are __________ rocks far from mid-ocean ridges.

younger than