Geological Sciences
Mock Exam
Course Introduction
Geological Sciences is the study of the Earth, its structure, processes, materials, and history. This course explores fundamental concepts such as plate tectonics, mineralogy, petrology, geomorphology, and paleontology. Students will learn about Earths dynamic systems, including earthquakes, volcanoes, and the rock cycle, as well as methods for analyzing Earth materials and interpreting geological data. The course also covers the role of geosciences in resource management, environmental challenges, and understanding past climate changes, providing a comprehensive foundation for advanced study or careers in the geosciences field.
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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Sample Questions
Q1) Transform faults only cut across oceanic lithosphere where ridge systems are offset.
A)True
B)False
Answer: False
Q2) The ________ forms the relatively cool, brittle plates of plate tectonics.
A)asthenosphere
B)lithosphere
C)astrosphere
D)eosphere
Answer: B
Q3) The ________, about 100 km thick, is the coldest, most rigid, and most brittle layer in the Earth.
A)lithosphere
B)asthenosphere
C)mesosphere
D)inner core
Answer: A
Q4) What is the average density of oceanic crust?
Answer: 3.0 grams per cubic centimetre
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Chapter 2: Minerals: The Building Blocks of Rocks
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Sample Questions
Q1) Based on the brief discussion of chemistry and chemical bonding, why do minerals rarely exhibit pure chemical compositions (100% always the same chemical composition)?
Answer: Many cations have similar sizes and can freely substitute for each other as the mineral is forming, resulting in varying compositions of the mineral.
Q2) Which of the following is not a fundamental particle found in atoms?
A)neutron
B)selectron
C)electron
D)proton
Answer: B
Q3) Hornblende and the other amphiboles have what type of silicate structure?
A)metallic
B)sheet
C)3-D framework
D)double chains
Answer: D
Q4) ________ is the most common variety of the mineral group amphibole. Answer: Hornblende
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Chapter 3: Igneous Rocks
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Sample Questions
Q1) Rocks that consist completely of disordered ions with no long range structures are called ________.
A)aphanitic
B)glassy
C)phaneritic
D)porphyritic
Answer: B
Q2) What is the most common extrusive rock type for any volcanic environment on the Earth or even on the Moon?
A)andesite
B)basalt
C)obsidian
D)rhyolite
Answer: B
Q3) In a cooling andesite magma with pyroxene and calcic plagioclase, what will those minerals react to as the magma continues to lose heat?
Answer: pyroxene + calcic plagioclase -----> amphibole + intermediate Ca-Na plagioclase in Bowen's Reaction Series
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Page 5
Chapter 4: Volcanoes and Volcanic Processes
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Sample Questions
Q1) A magma's viscosity and tendency to cause explosive eruptions depends on its composition, temperature, and volatile gas content.
A)True
B)False
Q2) What are the smaller secondary volcanic vents on a large composite volcano like Mt.Etna called?
Q3) What kind of volcanic structure is Black Tusk in British Columbia?
Q4) Choose the option that does not fit the pattern.
A)Mount Hood
B)Mount Baker
C)Mount Fujiyama
D)Mount Meager
Q5) What drives explosive volcanic eruptions?
A)andesitic magma's extremely low viscosity
B)collapsing eruption columns
C)expanding superheated volcanic gases
D)high pressures from the melting region far beneath the volcano
Q6) Basaltic volcanoes like Kilauea are typically the most explosive.
A)True
B)False
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Chapter 5: Weathering and Soil
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Sample Questions
Q1) Which of the following affects both the kind of soil and its rate of formation?
A)type of vegetation cover
B)meteorite showers
C)sun spot activity
D)plants and animals, climate, and parent material
Q2) Which of the following best describes the process of eluviation?
A)Percolating water removes very fine-sized silt and clay particles from the A and E soil horizons.
B)buildup of calcite in the B horizon of pedocal soils
C)removal of soluble chemical constituents from the A and B soil horizons
D)feldspar decomposition and leaching of the soluble products from the C soil horizon
Q3) The addition of a small amount of acidity dramatically increases rates of dissolution and chemical weathering.
A)True
B)False
Q4) What are the common red and brown mineral residues produced by oxidation?
Q5) Quartz weathers readily to aluminum-rich clay minerals.
A)True
B)False
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Chapter 6: Sedimentary Rocks
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Sample Questions
Q1) Boulder conglomerates suggest deposition by strong winds in a desert.
A)True
B)False
Q2) Consider the small delicate Early Cenozoic ancestors of the modern horse.Which part of these animals was most commonly preserved as fossils?
A)skull
B)vertebrae
C)hair
D)teeth
Q3) Which of the following sedimentary rocks would you expect to have originally been deposited by fast-moving streams?
A)mudstone
B)oolitic limestone
C)wacke
D)conglomerate
Q4) Where would wedge shaped piles of muddy sediment with interspersed branching sandy channels likely occur?
Q5) What are the two fundamentally different types of fossils and give an example of each?
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Chapter 7: Metamorphism and Metamorphic Rocks
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Sample Questions
Q1) Which of the following forms at a medium grade of regional metamorphism?
A)hornfels
B)schist
C)slate
D)phyllite
Q2) Choose the option that does not fit the pattern.
A)greenschist
B)amphibolite
C)granulite
D)phyllite
Q3) Most metamorphism happens entirely in the solid state.
A)True
B)False
Q4) What are two ways that heat (temperature)drives metamorphism?
Q5) What is the opposite of brittle deformation and give an example of a texture that forms this other way?
Q6) What are the aluminosilicate minerals (Al<sub>2</sub>SiO<sub>5 </sub>)and how are they formed and distinguished?
Q7) Where does burial metamorphism occur, how is it recognized and what conditions does it represent?
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Chapter 8: Geologic Time
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Sample Questions
Q1) Visualize (or draw)five, horizontal, sedimentary strata as exposed in a cliff or canyon wall identified by consecutive numbers, 1 being the lowest bed and 5 being the highest.Which of the following statements concerning the strata are true?
A)bed 5 is the oldest
B)beds 1 and 3 are older than bed 4
C)bed 4 is older than bed 2
D)bed 3 is older than beds 2 and 4
Q2) Which geologic event or feature has the crucial contact relations to help you determine that fault B is younger than fault A, even though they don't directly contact each other?
Q3) In addition to the law of superposition, Nicolaus Steno is credited with first recognizing the principle or law of ________.
Q4) Acritarchs, conodonts, graptolites and trilobites would all be useful as index fossils, environmental indicators, or relative dating tools for ________.
A)Cretaceous through Eocene aeolian deposits
B)Cenozoic conglomerates
C)Mesozoic coals
D)Paleozoic marine shales and carbonates
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Page 10
Chapter 9: Crustal Deformation
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Sample Questions
Q1) In a thrust fault, the hanging wall moves ________ relative to the footwall and the fault plane is oriented at a ________ angle.
Q2) Does the hanging wall block move up or down along a reverse fault?
Q3) Igneous and metamorphic rocks exposed in the "stable" interiors of continents have necessarily been uplifted from much deeper levels in the Earth's crust.
A)True
B)False
Q4) Many oil and gas deposits and artesian bedrock aquifers occur in geologic reservoirs within structural traps.
A)True
B)False
Q5) Compressional stresses are responsible for most normal faulting.
A)True
B)False
Q6) How did geologists figure out the general characteristics of how rocks deform?
Q7) How do geologists recognize and map the large scale, dominant bedrock structures?
Q8) Describe the most common way for a monocline to form.
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Q9) A(n)________ has the strata on both limbs dipping away (outward from)the axis.
Chapter 10: Earthquakes and Earth's Interior
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Sample Questions
Q1) Most large earthquakes result from ________.
A)impacts of meteorites from outer space
B)explosions and detonations of military ordnance especially of nuclear weapons
C)storm waves and tsunamis crashing onto the shoreline so hard that the earth shakes
D)the wavelike vibration of the Earth in response to the rapid release of stored elastic energy in deformed rocks
Q2) What characterizes P-wave arrivals on the far side of the Earth at epicentral angles beyond 140°?
A)They are amplified in intensity by the Ni-Fe in the core.
B)They arrive sooner than expected because of the abrupt increase in velocity at the mantle-core boundary.
C)They are slowed by about 40% due to refraction through the outer core.
D)The waveforms of their signals are all upside down due to coming out the other side of the Earth.
Q3) ________ are not transmitted through the outer core.
Q4) What is observed in paleoseismology?
Q5) 1)How do we observe the Earth's interior and 2)how do we interpret what materials this represents?
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Chapter 11: The Ocean Floor
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Sample Questions
Q1) How deep is the deepest portion of the ocean floor and what are these regions called?
A)2000 metres, submarine canyons
B)2500 metres, rift zones
C)4000 metres, abyssal plains
D)>10,000 metres, trenches
Q2) How do calcareous oozes form?
A)The particles are biogenically or chemically precipitated in warm, surface waters and sink to the bottom.
B)The particles are precipitated by deep-ocean, bottom-dwelling, carbon-fixing bacteria.
C)The particles are precipitated in the water column below the depth of sunlight penetration and then sink to the bottom.
D)The particles settle out from calcite-rich turbidity currents at depths greater than 4,500 metres.
Q3) The velocity of sound in ordinary seawater is about 1500 metres/second.
A)True
B)False
Q4) Submarine canyons are eroded at least in part by ________.
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Chapter 12: Plate Tectonics: The Framework for Modern Geology
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Sample Questions
Q1) If you are towing a magnetometer across the ocean and encounter a region of reduced magnetic intensity, what does this mean?
Q2) As the South Atlantic basin widens by seafloor spreading, Africa and South America are moving closer together.
A)True
B)False
Q3) ________ the west coast of South America
A)convergent
B)transform
C)divergen
Q4) ________ was never proposed as evidence supporting the existence of Pangaea.
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
Q5) ________ characterized by basaltic volcanism and seafloor spreading
A)convergent
B)transform
C)divergen
Q6) Name one of the six intermediate sized plates. Page 14
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Page 15
Chapter 13: Mountain Building and Continental Frameworks
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Sample Questions
Q1) Overthickened crust continues to slowly rise, even though its thickness is gradually being reduced by erosion.
A)True
B)False
Q2) The two most likely locations for sediments to accumulate on an Aleutian margin are in the trench and on the edges of the arc.
A)True
B)False
Q3) The ________ is (are)characterized by terrane accretion that has been active throughout most of Mesozoic and Cenozoic time.
A)western margin of Africa
B)southern margins of India and Australia
C)western margin of North America
D)western margin of the mid-Atlantic ridge
Q4) Choose the option that does not fit the pattern.
A)compression
B)fold-and-thrust-belt
C)suture
D)island arc
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Chapter 14: Mass Wasting: The Work of Gravity
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Sample Questions
Q1) All of the following are possible indicators that creep is occurring except for
A)tilted fences or power line poles
B)a thick soil profile
C)curved tree trunks
D)cracks in roads or sidewalks
Q2) Lahars are basically debris flows associated with steep volcanic valleys and unconsolidated volcanic deposits.
A)True
B)False
Q3) Which one of the following operates primarily in areas of permafrost?
A)rockslide
B)solifluction
C)slump
D)debris flow
Q4) Solifluction occurs during the warmer summer months.
A)True
B)False
Q5) If creep moves very slowly, by what evidence or how can it be recognized?
Q6) How can rock slopes be stabilized against rockslides?
Page 17
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Chapter 15: Running Water
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Sample Questions
Q1) ________ streams have interconnecting channels around unstable sandy bars.
Q2) Stream discharge is defined as the quantity of water flowing past a specific channel location per unit time.
A)True
B)False
Q3) The hydrologic cycle is off-balance because more liquid is brought in via comets and meteorites each year.
A)True
B)False
Q4) Where turbulent water flows around irregularities on the stream flow, ________ commonly form.
Q5) Which one of the following best describes how urbanization affects small-stream watersheds?
A)Infiltration is reduced; lag time between storms and peak runoff is increased.
B)Infiltration increases slightly; lag time between storms and peak runoff decreases.
C)Infiltration decreases; lag time between storms and peak runoff is shortened.
D)Infiltration and lag time between storms and peak runoff increase.
Q6) A ________ is a stream segment along its course.
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Chapter 16: Groundwater
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Sample Questions
Q1) Which of the following statements is false for an area subsiding because of excessive pumping of groundwater?
A)Dewatered aquifer material compacts.
B)Effluent streams may dry up.
C)Water table is substantially lowered.
D)The aquifer is consolidated bedrock.
Q2) Which one of the following logically explains why parts of some cavern systems are aerated?
A)The caves formed and later the water table rose.
B)A nearby, downcutting stream lowered the water table after the caves had formed.
C)Streams formerly flowing on the surface were diverted into the groundwater system through sinkholes.
D)The main water table is perched above the cavern roofs, allowing air to enter.
Q3) Choose the option that does not fit the pattern.
A)cavern
B)geyserite
C)sinkhole
D)tower karst
Q4) A ________ is a circular to elliptical, closed depressions in karst areas.
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Chapter 17: Glaciers and Glaciation
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Sample Questions
Q1) An erratic is made of ________.
A)rock
B)till
C)sand and gravel
D)mud
Q2) The ruggedness of the terrain in high elevation mountainous areas was caused by continental glaciation.
A)True
B)False
Q3) Glacial ice is very effective as an agent of erosion.How would you identify glacial sediments from alluvial (stream)sediments? Also, could certain glacial sediments be mistaken for alluvium?
Q4) During ice-age times when glaciers are present, water is typically stored as glacial ice and removed from the hydrologic cycle for ________.
A)less than a few months
B)up to several years
C)tens to thousands of years
D)hundreds of millions of years
Q5) List the three mechanisms of glacial movement over its bed.
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Chapter 18: Deserts and Winds
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Sample Questions
Q1) A ________ is formed by abrasion of rocks by windblown sand.
A)playa
B)ventifact
C)pediment
D)desert pavement
Q2) Yardangs are streamlined, wind-sculpted ridges oriented parallel to prevailing wind direction.
A)True
B)False
Q3) Deserts between 30 and 45 degrees of latitude are more extensive in the southern hemisphere than in the northern hemisphere.
A)True
B)False
Q4) In North America, loess deposits are found mainly in the dry to semiarid lands of southwestern United States and northern Mexico.
A)True
B)False
Q5) How far does the Nile River flow across the Sahara desert without any tributaries?
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Chapter 19: Shorelines
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Sample Questions
Q1) A(n)________ current forms during an incoming or rising tide.
A)flood
B)drift
C)rip
D)ebb
Q2) A ________ is a manmade structure, extending at right angles to the beach, built to trap sand moving parallel to the beach.
Q3) What would change, compared to the present tidal variation, if the moon's orbit were to exactly match Earth's axial tilt?
Q4) How great can the speed of tidal currents be, such as during spring tides off the coast of Brittany in France?
A)2 km/hr
B)10 km/hr
C)20 km/hr
D)100 km/hr
Q5) Falling tides and tidal currents flowing from an estuary to the open sea are known as ________.
Q6) ________ currents refer to water moving parallel to a shoreline.
Q7) A ________ is a high rocky pinnacle that rises from a wave-cut platform.
Page 22
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Chapter 20: Mineral and Energy Resources
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Sample Questions
Q1) Hydroelectricity contributes ________ percent of Canada's total electricity generation.
A).058
B).58
C)5.8
D)58
Q2) Canada ranks first in the world for production of ________.
A)copper and zinc
B)gold and silver
C)potash and uranium
D)diamonds and platinum
Q3) List three, different types of fossil fuels.
Q4) Bauxite is a residual ore deposit of ________ formed by prolonged, intense, tropical weathering of granitic bedrock.
A)aluminum
B)calcium
C)mercury
D)silver
Q5) Name three metals or minerals which are resistant and heavy enough to concentrate as placers.
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