Deck 17: Plate Tectonics: Can We Predict Destructive Earthquakes

Question 1

What is always characteristic of a tectonic plate?

A) made of basalt
B) comprised of crust and some mantle material
C) made of granite
D) has a thickness of at least 35 km
E) all of these are correct

Answer 1

B

Question 2

Which formula would you use to determine the age of the Atlantic Ocean basin?

A) E = mc²
B) D = R x T
C) F = M x A
D) A = $\pi$ r²
E) P = N x R x T

Answer 2

D = R x T

Question 3

What evidence convinced most scientists to accept the theory of plate tectonics?

A) ocean topography
B) magnetism of the ocean basin rocks
C) discovery of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge
D) radiometric dating of the basaltic rocks
E) all of these are correct

Answer 3

E

Question 4

What causes the 'Ring of Fire,' which borders much of the Pacific Ocean?

A) plate subduction
B) divergent plates
C) sea-floor spreading
D) transform plate motion
E) all of these are correct

Question 5

Where is the longest mountain range on Earth?

A) Mid-Atlantic Ocean Ridge
B) Andes Mountains in South America
C) Himalayas in India
D) Appalachians in the eastern United States
E) Urals in Russia

Question 6

Which of the following describes earthquakes?

A) Earthquakes are an abrupt release of energy.
B) Prediction of earthquakes is an established science, which gives global citizens a chance to evacuate ahead of time.
C) Earthquakes have never occurred in the middle of the USA.
D) No earthquake has been measured higher than 7 on the Richter scale.
E) All earthquakes happen within one kilometer of the Earth's surface.

Question 7

The continents of Eurasia and North America are currently moving apart at an average rate of

A) 2 inches per century.
B) 5 cm per year.
C) 5 meters per year.
D) 2 cm per century.
E) 10 cm per decade.

Question 8

The northwestern coast of the United States is

A) in the middle of a continental plate.
B) where two tectonic plates move parallel to one another.
C) located along a divergent plate boundary.
D) near a subduction zone.
E) associated with a hot spot.

Question 9

The transform plate boundaries

A) form new material at rates exceeding that of the divergent plate boundaries.
B) are the location of island arcs and hot spots.
C) created the Andes Mountains in South America.
D) are exemplified by the San Andreas fault.
E) are sites of major volcano ranges.

Question 10

Which of these waves is classified as a type of seismic wave following earthquakes?

A) transverse
B) compressional
C) longitudinal
D) shear waves
E) all of these are correct

Question 11

The magnetic patterns from seafloor data

A) were created by magnetite in lava flows.
B) are caused by hot spots.
C) are indicators of past and future earthquake sites.
D) have no one explanation accepted by scientists.
E) always run perpendicular to the equator.

Question 12

Subduction zone regions are commonly the locations of

A) active volcanoes.
B) the disappearance of old plate material.
C) the world's highest mountains.
D) severe earthquakes.
E) all of these are correct.

Question 13

Divergent plate boundaries are associated with

A) seafloor spreading.
B) formation of new crust.
C) volcanic action.
D) shallow, low-energy earthquakes.
E) all of these are correct

Question 14

Most mountains have not eroded to a flat plain over time because:

A) they are buried under a thin veneer of soil.
B) new mountains constantly emerge through rifts in the crustal material of oceans and continents.
C) ozone depletion has decreased the rate of erosion.
D) the mantle has a constant supply of granitic material
E) mountains are reformed by tectonic uplift that is greater than or equal to the erosional forces.

Question 15

How often does the oceanic plate material of the Earth renew itself - in other words - how long to go through one replacement cycle?

A) every 100 million years
B) every 200 million years
C) every 1,000 years
D) every 100,000 years
E) The oceanic plate material never renews itself.

Question 16

If you took a vacation driving to the oldest part of the North American continent you would need to bring a map of

A) Wichita, Kansas.
B) northeastern Canada.
C) the Cascade Range of the Sierra Nevada Mountains.
D) Baja, California.
E) the Black Hills of South Dakota.

Question 17

What is the force that moves continents and tectonic plates?

A) convection cells
B) mantle convection
C) radioactive decay
D) heat energy left from the great bombardment
E) all of these are correct

Question 18

Which of the following is an example of a continental convergent plate boundary?

A) the East African Rift Valley
B) the San Andreas Fault
C) the Atlantic east coast fall line
D) Mount St. Helens in the northwest United States
E) the Himalayan Mountains

Question 19

The North American Plate

A) extends from coast to coast in the United States and is completely covered by land.
B) extends from the middle of the Atlantic Ocean to the edge of the Pacific Plate.
C) contains the eastern half of North America and parts of western Europe.
D) has only subducting boundaries.
E) contains only the western half of North and South America.

Question 20

Which of the following was used as evidence for plate tectonics?

A) topographic profiles of the ocean floors
B) maps on rock magnetism
C) data classifying rocks by age
D) sea floor spreading
E) all of these are correct

Question 21

How does seismic tomography give scientists a three-dimensional view of the Earth?

Question 22

Which earthquakes in the United States gets the most attention and why?

Question 23

The Earth's magnetic field changes direction periodically over geologic time. Describe what evidence scientists have for this change.

Question 24

Explain the wide range in age differences between the age of the continents measured in billions of years and the age of the ocean floor measured in millions of years.

Question 25

Describe the type of land formation that would be created at each of these plate boundaries and the processes involved: continental divergent; ocean divergent; continental convergent; or ocean convergent.

Question 26

How do seismologists use the vibration energy released by earthquakes?

Question 27

Which of the following would not be seen in the United States?

A) chunks of land called terranes
B) an old spreading "rift" plate boundary
C) a "hot spot" with active volcanoes
D) a mountain range created from the collision of two continents
E) a mountain range formed when molten rock pushed up sediments

Question 28

What evidence did Wegener use in proposing the idea of continental drift? Why were his ideas not accepted?

Question 29

What would be an architectural specification for a skyscraper built in an earthquake-prone region?

A) rigid and strong
B) flexible with shock preservers
C) soft and malleable
D) corner angles locked to 90 degrees
E) covered with rubber insulation

Question 30

The only currently active plate boundary within the continental United States is the

A) Marianas Trench.
B) East-Pacific Rise.
C) New Madrid Fault.
D) San Andreas Fault.
E) Mid-Atlantic Ridge.

Question 31

What are the processes that build stress in brittle rocks?

Question 32

Describe the changes in curriculum organization in geology departments in recent years.

Question 33

What reasoning did scientists use to determine that the Atlantic Ocean is 140 million years old?

Question 34

The Marianas Trench is the result of two convergent plates - with no continents on either plate - forming a subduction zone. Knowing these facts, what else can you say about the Marianas Trench?

Question 35

Explain the statement 'Good scientists will eventually accept the implications of their observations, whether those implications violate conventional ideas or not.'

Question 36

What part of the Hawaiian Island chain is the oldest?

A) northwest
B) southwest
C) south
D) east
E) west

Question 37

The difference between continental and ocean basin rock is

A) ocean rocks are not as dense as continental rocks.
B) ocean rocks are basaltic and continental rocks are granitic.
C) continental rocks can be detected by Geiger counters.
D) continental rocks were originally metamorphic rocks.
E) continental rocks form thinner crustal material.

Question 38

What would the Earth topography look like after 4.5 billion years if plate tectonics were not an active process? Why?

Question 39

How can you tell the relative age of a mountain by its physical features?

Question 40

What attributes of granite and basalt have resulted in the difference in elevations we see on Earth today?

Question 41

What are the two construction approaches to designing earthquake-resistant buildings? What size building is applicable to each?

Question 42

What is the origin of earthquake energy?

Question 43

What is the Richter scale and what does it measure?

Question 44

If an ocean is opening at a rate of 5 cm/year and it has been doing so at the same rate for 10 million years, approximately how wide is that ocean?

Question 45

What kind of plate boundary is neither divergent nor convergent? What are the characteristics of such a plate boundary?

Question 46

On average, over the past 200 million years, how often has the Earth's magnetic field reversed its field so that the north magnetic pole switched and became the south magnetic pole and vice versa.

Question 47

How is it that the deepest earthquakes do not go beyond a few tens of kilometers deep, except in the area of subduction zones where they may originate more than 100 kilometers down?

Question 48

What are some examples of "precursor events" that may signal that an earthquake is imminent?

Question 49

If the Hawaiian islands are the result of hot-spot volcanism, why is there a chain of islands and not one big island in the Pacific?

Question 50

What effect did plate tectonics have on the human evolutionary aspect of walking upright?