EXAM 1 Ch 1-5
What type of plate boundary is usually associated with pull-apart rift zones?
A. A divergent plate boundary
Which scientist argued forcefully for continental drift in the early part of the 20th century?
A. Alfred Wegener
Of what metal is bauxite the ore?
A. Aluminum
Of the following choices, which best describes Mt. St. Helens?
A. An explosive stratovolcano
Which of the following best describes the fundamental concept of superposition?
A. Any sedimentary deposit accumulates on top of older rock or sediments layer.
Where in the ocean does oceanic lithosphere sink into the mantle?
A. At subduction zones along convergent plate boundaries.
Which of the following is an accurate description of ionic bonding?
A. Atoms of different elements having gained or lost electrons form negative and positive ions that are bonded together by attractive forces between ions with opposite charges.
What type of magma is the most abundant at oceanic-spreding centers?
A. Basaltic
What type of volcanoes are Kilauea and Mauna Loa in Hawaii?
A. Basaltic shield volcanoes.
Why was Wegener's continentals drift hypothesis rejected?
A. Because Wegener could not identify a mechanism capable of moving continents.
Why are lava flows typically finer-grained than intrusive igneous rocks?
A. Because the extrusive magna cools quickly and mineral grains do not have time to grow.
What is probably the single most important, original, depositional feature in sedimentary rocks?
A. Bedding or stratification
What major change occurs during metamorphism of limestone to marble?
A. Calcite grains increase in size.
Which term describes a relatively stable interior portion of a continent?
A. Craton
What feature of the ocean floor develops where the oceanic lithosphere bends downward and sinks into the mantle?
A. Deep ocean trenches
What minerals is the hardest known substance in nature?
A. Diamond
Which of the following are used as abrasives?
A. Diamonds and garnets
What term describes a strong, parallel alignment of coarse mica flakes and/or of different bands in a metamorphic rock?
A. Foliation
What was the name of the fossil flora that grew on Pangaea during late Paleozoic?
A. Glossopteris
Of the following rock types, which is characterized by the segregation of light and dark colored minerals into thin layers or bands?
A. Granitic gneiss
Which of the following best defines a mineral and a rock?
A. In a mineral, the constituent atoms are bonded in a regular, repetitive, internal structure: a rock is a lithified or consolidated aggregate of different mineral grains.
Where do coal beds originate?
A. In freshwater coastal swamps and bogs
Where does seafloor spreading occur along relatively narrow areas at the crest of oceanic ridges?
A. In rift zones
Which list below identifies the layers of the Earth in the correct order from the center outward?
A. Inner core, outer core, mantle, crust.
Which 18th century English geologist proposed uniformitarianism?
A. James Hutton.
Which of the following best describes the Great Rift Valley of East Africa?
A. Mainly normal faulting as East Africa begins to fragment.
In 1980 _________ was the first Cascade Range volcano to erupt since Mt. Lassen, California in 1915-1916?
A. Mt. St, Helens
What city in central United States was struck by three major earthquakes during the winter and spring months of the year 1811-1812 and experienced a quake as recently as 2008?
A. New Madrid, Missouri
What causes the linear patterns associated with paleomagnetism on either side of mind-oceanic ridges?
A. Normal and reversed magnetized strips roughly parallel to the ridge
________ destroyed the city of St. Pierre, Martinique in 1902?
A. Nuee ardente
What is the largest known volcano in the solar system?
A. Olympus Mons, Mars
Which term refers specifically to geologic mountain building?
A. Orogeny
What element is the most abundant in Earth's crust by weight?
A. Oxygen
Which ocean basin is rimmed by the most subduction zones?
A. Pacific
The former, late Paleozoic supercontinent is known as ____________.
A. Pangaea.
What are the basic differences between the disciplines of physical and historical geology?
A. Physical geology includes the study of how rocks form and of how erosion shapes the land surface: historical geology involves the study of rock strata, fossils, and geologic events, utilizing the geologic time scale as a reference.
Which type of wave moves the fastest and thus will reach the seismograph first?
A. Primary waves
Which volcanic rock is extremely vesicular and glassy?
A. Pumince
Which mineral is composed of silicon dioxide (Si02)
A. Quartz
Which one of the following statements is correct?
A. S waves travel through solids and P waves travel through solid and liquids.
What fault in California is the boundary between the North American and Pacific plates?
A. San Andreas strike-slip fault
Which of the following is not a fundamental particle found in atoms?
A. Selectron
Which one of the following is not a chemical sedimentary rock or evaporite?
A. Shale
What term describes the zone where two continents collide, often preserving slivers of oceanic lithosphere between the colliding plates?
A. Suture
What term describes the sizes, shapes, and arrangements of mineral grains in an igneous rock?
A. Texture
What North American mountains are a geologically old mountain range that was folded and deformed during the Paleozoic?
A. The Appalachians in the eastern United States
Which of the following statements best describes the Hawaiian volcanoes?
A. The Hawaiian volcanoes are situated in the interior of the Pacific plate above a hot sport deep in the mantle.
Which of the following is correct for isotopes of the same element?
A. The atoms have different numbers of neutrons and the same number of protons.
Which one of the following statements concerning foci and epicenters is correct?
A. The epicenter is at the surface directly above the focus, which is where the earthquakes occurs.
What atomic particle in an atom is the same for each element?
A. The number of protons in the nucleus.
Which one of the following best describes volcanism of the Cascade Range in the northwestern United States?
A. The volcanism is related to plate subduction.
Why are coal and petroleum considered fossil fuels?
A. Their energy content was derived from ancient sunlight.
Compared to the age of Earth accepted as correct today, how did 17th and 18th century proponents of catastrophism envision Earth's age.
A. They believed Earth to be much younger than current estimates.
How do electrons behave in a mineral with metallic bonding?
A. They can move relatively easily from atom to atom inside the mineral.
How did the mountains and valleys of the Basin and Range Province of the western United States form?
A. They formed from tensional stresses and normal-fault movements.
Which one of the following is true regarding tsunami?
A. They occur in the open ocean: their wavelengths are many miles or kilometers and their wave heights are only a few feet.
Which of the following is a renewable resource?
A. Timber
What geological theory is often paraphrased as "the present is the key to the past"?
A. Uniformitarianism
____________ is the process by which rocks breakdown in place to produce soils.
A. Weathering
To what is the geological recent volcanic activity in Yellowstone National Park usually attributed?
A. Yellowstone volcanism is usually attributed to intraplate (meaning "within the plate") hot spot volcanism