Geoscience Essentials
Final Test Solutions
Course Introduction
Geoscience Essentials introduces students to the fundamental concepts and processes that shape the Earth and its environment. This course covers topics such as the structure of the Earth, plate tectonics, minerals and rocks, geological time, surface processes, and the role of geoscience in addressing modern-day challenges such as resource management and environmental change. Through lectures, hands-on activities, and case studies, students gain a broad understanding of Earths dynamic systems and the tools geoscientists use to interpret the planets past, present, and future.
Recommended Textbook
Earth An Introduction to Physical Geology 4th Canadian Edition by Edward J. Tarbuck
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20 Chapters
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3286 Flashcards
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Chapter 1: An Introduction to Geology and Plate Tectonics
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Sample Questions
Q1) The process by which magmas cool and solidify to rock is termed ________.
A)volcanism
B)plutonism
C)crystallization
D)thermal metamorphism
Answer: C
Q2) The law of superposition applies primarily to sedimentary rocks and lava flows.
A)True
B)False
Answer: True
Q3) "The present is the key to the past" is the uniformitarian concept that ________.
A)geologic processes give rise to the same types of products and features
B)rivers, seas, mountains, etc.are perpetual features of an unchanging landscape
C)each mountain that is eroding today to produce river sediment has always done so
D)the rates of geologic processes (erosion, sedimentation, volcanism)are invariant
Answer: A
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3
Chapter 2: Minerals: The Building Blocks of Rocks
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Sample Questions
Q1) Positive ions are atoms that have gained electrons during a chemical reaction.
A)True
B)False
Answer: False
Q2) Diamonds are hard because all carbon atoms are held together by equally strong ________ bonds arranged in a face centred cubic structure.
Answer: covalent
Q3) The main use for most diamond, corundum and garnet is ________.
A)fillers in industrial products like paint and pharmaceuticals
B)gemstones of the semiprecious variety
C)industrial abrasives
D)semiconductors for the electronics industry
Answer: C
Q4) Calcite and halite react with dilute acids to evolve carbon dioxide.
A)True
B)False
Answer: False
Q5) Which is the most common mineral class?
Answer: the silicates
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Chapter 3: Igneous Rocks
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Sample Questions
Q1) Which of the following has the same mineral composition as andesite?
A)basalt
B)granite
C)gabbro
D)diorite
Answer: D
Q2) Mantle upwelling under mid ocean ridge spreading centres leads to decompression melting.
A)True
B)False
Answer: True
Q3) Briefly explain how magma compositions can change through magma mixing.
Answer: Renewed injection of a primitive basaltic magma into a cooling felsic magma body could result in an intermediate magma formed by the mixture of the two end members.
Q4) What igneous rock comprises the active volcanoes of Hawaii and Iceland?
Answer: basalt
Q5) What is a very large (> 100 kmĀ² ), discordant pluton, commonly of granitic composition?
Answer: batholith
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Chapter 4: Volcanoes and Volcanic Processes
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Sample Questions
Q1) Which best describes a caldera?
A)a small, steep-sided, volcanic depression bored out by an eruptive plume
B)a large circular volcanic depression caused by collapse after a large scale, explosive felsic eruption
C)a collapse pit less than 1 square kilometre on the summit of a volcano
D)a large depression hundreds of kilometres across full of volcanic deposits
Q2) Domes form from high viscosity felsic magma slowly erupted into a volcanic crater. A)True
B)False
Q3) What volcanic events formed Crater Lake, OR? When did they take place?
A)A powerful explosion blew away the top of a composite volcano; 10 million years ago.
B)The crater of a large, extinct cinder cone filled with water; 5 million years ago.
C)Landslides and volcanic mudflows dammed the Mazama River; 500 years ago.
D)Caldera collapse followed major ash and pyrodastic-flow eruptions; 7700 years ago.
Q4) Fluid mafic eruptions on sloping seafloor leaves piles of glassy skinned irregular shaped deposits called ________.
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Chapter 5: Weathering and Soil
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Sample Questions
Q1) Which form of chemical weathering specifically affects the iron contained in ferromagnesian, rock-forming, silicate minerals?
Q2) Which term best describes those processes that move weathered rock materials and soils downslope?
A)podzolization
B)slope sheeting
C)mass wasting
D)talus transfer
Q3) Caliche is an excessive accumulation of ________.
A)calcite in the E horizon of a pedalfer
B)clays in the A horizon of a laterite
C)clays in hardpan layers of a pedocal
D)calcium carbonate in the B horizon of a pedocal
Q4) From the land surface downward to the unweathered bedrock, which of the following is the correct order of the different soil horizons?
A)O, A, E, B, C, bedrock
B)A, B, C, D, E, bedrock
C)E, A, B, C, O, bedrock
D)D, E, C, B, A, bedrock
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Chapter 6: Sedimentary Rocks
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Sample Questions
Q1) What physical and chemical processes transform lignite to bituminous coal?
A)coking in industrial ovens without oxygen
B)heating to drive off water and volatile gases and pressure for compaction
C)weathering and further transport
D)mining it then drying it in the sun
Q2) What rock type would be made mostly from particles 1/256 millimetres and has lots of thin flat laminae and a reddish colour?
A)ferruginous shale
B)carbonaceous mudstone
C)calcareous siltstone
D)Wilma Flintstone
Q3) Which of the following is the most common type of chemical sedimentary rock?
A)limestone
B)chert
C)phosphate rock
D)quartz sandstone
Q4) The sedimentary rocks salt and gypsum are deposited by what process?
Q5) Name at least three factors that determine the type and character of the sediments on a continental shelf.
Q6) What are the main sources of carbon from the lithosphere?
Page 8
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Chapter 7: Metamorphism and Metamorphic Rocks
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Sample Questions
Q1) In the formation of migmatites, which minerals start to melt first?
A)amphibole, biotite, and garnet
B)quartz and feldspar
C)chlorite and calcite
D)zircon and magnetite
Q2) ________ is thought to form by partial melting and in situ crystallization of the melted portion at the highest grade of regional metamorphism of crustal rocks.
A)Magmatite
B)Magnetite
C)Migmatite
D)Meltite
Q3) What foliated, regional metamorphic rock is texturally intermediate between slate and schist?
A)fault breccia
B)phyllite
C)quartzite
D)gneiss
Q4) Give the name of a rock formed by regional metamorphism of a conglomerate.
Q5) Regional metamorphism is most intense where ________ collide.
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Chapter 8: Geologic Time
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Sample Questions
Q1) Both long-lived, naturally occurring, uranium isotopes decay through a series of intermediate, radioactive, daughter isotopes to stable isotopes of ________.
A)carbon
B)thorium
C)radon
D)lead
Q2) What is the name of a Phanerozoic era that means ancient life?
Q3) What kind of unconformity is the most common and why?
Q4) Which organisms were benthic (bottom dwellers)and extensively used as index fossils respectively for the Mesozoic and Lower Paleozoic?
A)ammonoids and conodonts
B)chitnozoans and graptolites
C)diatoms and diatoms
D)flatclams and trilobites
Q5) The Proterozoic Era is the first and oldest division of the Phanerozoic Eon.
A)True
B)False
Q6) Compare and contrast relative age dating with radiometric age dating.What is a limitation (if any)of each?
Page 10
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Chapter 9: Crustal Deformation
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Sample Questions
Q1) The Great Rift Valley of East Africa is characterized by ________.
A)mainly thrust faulting as Africa collides with Arabia
B)a belt of anticlinal and synclinal folding formed by Africa's collision with Madagascar
C)a valley formed from a series of grabens, nearly 6000 kilometres long and flanked by tilted horsts, formed mainly by normal faulting as East Africa begins to split apart
D)mainly transform faulting along zones connecting the rift with the Red Sea
Q2) Normal and reverse faults are characterized mainly by ________.
A)strike slip
B)horizontal slip
C)dip slip
D)camisole slip
Q3) Brittle deformation would be favoured over plastic deformation in which of the following conditions?
A)high confining pressures
B)warmer temperatures and high confining pressures
C)cooler temperatures and low confining pressures
D)great depths
Q4) Erosion along strike slip fault zones produces ________.
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Chapter 10: Earthquakes and Earth's Interior
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Sample Questions
Q1) How did geologists in the early 1900s establish the depths of the major internal layers within the earth?
Q2) ________ are the first to arrive at distant seismic stations.
Q3) Rank these "felt reports" for an earthquake affecting southernmost Vancouver Island, based on their Mercalli intensity value:
A: Everyone in the Happy Valley suburb runs outside, all newer houses survive but one old barn collapsed.
B: People inside the shops along Esquimalt Road felt it but few outside did so.The guy in the dry cleaners thought a truck had hit the building.
C: One and two storey wooden houses along East Sooke Road are destroyed, the small bridge across the head of the inlet collapsed as did rock walls along Gillespie Road.Open cracks are prevalent in unconsolidated sediments around Sooke Inlet and there was a small mud geyser near Whiffen Spit.
D: Tilted telephone poles and scaffolding outside a leaky condo pulled away near 6 mile Pub in Colwood.Many people outside noted tall trees and poles that seemed to sway without the wind blowing.
Q4) Name two belts of great earthquakes, or describe their location?
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Page 12
Chapter 11: The Ocean Floor
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Sample Questions
Q1) Which one of the following did not accompany the 1929 Newfoundland ML 7.2 earthquake?
A)Submarine telegraph cables were broken on the floor of the North Atlantic.
B)Explosive volcanic eruption of pillow basalts occurred on the west edge of the Grand Banks.
C)Turbidity currents moved down the continental rise to the edges of the North Atlantic abyssal plain.
D)A tsunami struck the Burin Peninsula of Newfoundland.
Q2) Geologically, what is the best way to explain the thousands of metres of coral limestone beneath most atolls?
A)Sea level has fallen thousands of metres since the reef began to grow.
B)An eroded volcanic seamount rose thousands of metres after the limestone formed.
C)The eroded volcano slowly sank as sea level remained steady or rose gradually.
D)The volcano never reached the surface, but built a very thick cap of coral limestones from its deep submarine hot springs emissions.
Q3) ________ are regions where most of the submarine canyons and deep-sea turbidite fans occur.
Q4) The sequence layers that comprise the oceanic crust is call an ________.
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Page 13
Chapter 12: Plate Tectonics: The Framework for Modern Geology
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Sample Questions
Q1) The Big Island of Hawaii is the oldest island of the Hawaiian chain.
A)True
B)False
Q2) The outermost surface expression of a subduction zone is the accretionary wedge, a mountain fold belt built up above sea level by the underthrust ocean crust.
A)True
B)False
Q3) What do the Appalachians have in common tectonically with the Himalayas?
A)They are both active, convergent, continental-margin arc systems.
B)They both formed by continental rifting.
C)They both formed by continent-continent collision.
D)They are both unusual places where ocean crust overrode the continent.
Q4) ________ to the south and ________ to the north were the two remaining halves of the Pangaea supercontinent once the Atlantic started to rift open.
Q5) Rifting and normal faulting are characteristic of a ________ plate boundary.
Q6) During the first quarter of the twentieth century, ________ was the most vigorous proponent of continental drift.
Q7) What are three mechanisms that at places contribute to plate motions?
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Chapter 13: Mountain Building and Continental Frameworks
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Sample Questions
Q1) A(n)________ is a thick accumulation of sediments and small, rootless, tectonic blocks formed of material scraped off a descending, lithospheric plate.
A)mass movement complex
B)continental shelf, terrain complex
C)accretionary-wedge complex
D)subterranean-accumulation complex
Q2) What is similar about the tectonic cause for the Western Canada Foreland Basin and the Appalachian Foreland Basin?
Q3) Well defined linear mountain ridges with southwesterly-dipping slopes, steep upturned bounding thrusts and intervening linear strike valleys are found in this part of the Rockies.
A)Front Ranges
B)Western Ranges
C)Main Ranges
D)Foothills
Q4) Despite the repetitive nature of Wilson cycles, give three reasons or variables that make each mountain belt unique.
Q5) Fault-block mountains occur in regions dominated by ________ faulting.
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Chapter 14: Mass Wasting: The Work of Gravity
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Sample Questions
Q1) Choose the option that does not fit the pattern.
A)earthquake
B)creep
C)liquefaction
D)rockslide
Q2) The significance of mass wasting processes can be seen in that most river valleys are broad rather than "V shaped" because mass wasting slope failures exceed stream erosion.
A)True
B)False
Q3) Triggers are the first step in a mass wasting event that leads to great damage.
A)True
B)False
Q4) When descending cohesive material moves "en masse" along a curved surface of rupture that just formed, it is termed a ________.
A)creep
B)flow
C)slump
D)sag
Q5) What removes vegetation from a slope?
Page 16
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Chapter 15: Running Water
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Sample Questions
Q1) With the passage of time, deposition and erosion gradually shorten the channel length of a meander loop.
A)True
B)False
Q2) Where turbulent water flows around irregularities on the stream flow, ________ commonly form.
Q3) Choose the option that does not fit the pattern.
A)dendritic
B)radial
C)circular
D)rectangular
Q4) Most precipitation in land areas originates by transpiration and by evaporation from lakes and rivers.
A)True
B)False
Q5) Incised meanders are evidence for what sequence of geologic events?
A)Land uplift was followed by stream downcutting.
B)Lateral cutting by streams was followed by subsidence of the land.
C)A sea level rise was followed by stream downcutting.
D)Stream downcutting was followed by a rise in base level.
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Chapter 16: Groundwater
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Sample Questions
Q1) Water-saturated muds have low permeabilities but can have greater porosities than well-cemented sandstone.
A)True
B)False
Q2) What is the belt of soil moisture?
A)a viable farming region across southern Alberta and Saskatchewan without rain
B)the layer in the ground with the largest roots, just beneath the zone of saturation
C)at shallow depth, a surface film of water retained on soil, sediment, or organic particles
D)where permafrost has melted leaving completely saturated soils
Q3) Of the choices listed below, which would make the best aquitard?
A)clay
B)basalt
C)granite
D)sand
Q4) Provide two reasons why adjacent wells drilled to the same depth might not both encounter water?
Q5) Two ways that sink holes can form are by ________ and ________.
Q6) Describe a circumstance under which groundwater is a non-renewable resource.
Page 18
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Chapter 17: Glaciers and Glaciation
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Sample Questions
Q1) Eskers and kames are associated with meltwater streams; they are composed of stratified sand and gravel.
A)True
B)False
Q2) ________ developed and promoted the first comprehensive mathematical model that periodic variations in the geometry of Earth's orbit (eccentricity, obliquity, precession)were responsible for climatic oscillations of 1000 to 100,000 years.
A)L.Agassiz
B)P.Hoffman
C)M.Milankovitch
D)I.Venetz
Q3) The bottom or downward tip of a crevasse marks the ________.
A)boundary between parts of the glacier moving by basal sliding and crevassal slip
B)boundary between the basal sliding and external flowage zones
C)bottom of the basal sliding zone
D)top of the internal deformation and flowage zone, and the base of the brittle zone of fracture
Q4) What physical evidence is there for the grinding power of glacial ice?
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Page 19
Chapter 18: Deserts and Winds
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Sample Questions
Q1) Which desert is a low-latitude, subtropical desert characterized by high atmospheric pressures and descending air masses (not rain shadow deserts).
Q2) Choose the option that does not fit the pattern.
A)barchan dune
B)star dune
C)transverse dune
D)parabolic dune
Q3) 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
Q4) A dry climate is one in which yearly precipitation is not as great as the potential loss of water by evaporation.
A)True
B)False
Q5) ________ windward air masses rise up mountain slopes and deliver moisture to mountaintops while ________ leeward masses descend into rainshadow areas on the other side.
Q6) How is a dry climate defined?
20
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Chapter 19: Shorelines
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Sample Questions
Q1) What term denotes a sand bar built across the former mouth of an estuary and separating it from the open sea?
Q2) What current geologic processes ultimately doom any attempts to stabilize and preserve shorelines within a century or so?
A)global plate motions and tectonic shifts
B)gradual sea level rise of 1-2 mm/year related to global warming
C)increasing storm severity
D)loss of river discharge from dams and water use on most major rivers
Q3) The berm is the flat lying to shoreward-sloping area adjacent to the foreshore.
A)True
B)False
Q4) Shorelines are temporary geologic and topographic features.Explain this statement.
Q5) The two greatest sources of coastal sediment deposits are waves and currents bringing in sediment eroded from the offshore seabed and winds that blow silts and sands off the adjacent land areas.
A)True
B)False
Q6) Name two intentional interventions that can reduce beach erosion.
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Chapter 20: Mineral and Energy Resources
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Sample Questions
Q1) About 70 percent of landfill methane collected in Canada is used for energy production.
A)True
B)False
Q2) Choose the option that does not fit the pattern.
A)SEDEX
B)placer
C)stratiform
D)MVT
Q3) What is the principal compositional difference between wet gas and dry gas, and what is the difference in environmental conditions that controls their formation?
Q4) ________ is a solid substance formed when water molecules form cages that surround methane molecules.
A)Methane hydrate
B)Hydrogen silicate
C)Helium oxidate
D)Butane coagulate
Q5) Chalcopyrite and bornite are sulphide ore minerals of ________.
Q6) How much of Canada's electricity needs are met with hydroelectric power?
Page 22
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