Unit 9 Environmental Science Test

Which of the following are classified as heavy metals?

lead, mercury, cadmium

Which of the following strategies could be used to reduce soil erosion during surface mining of coal?

Replanting vegetation.

Which of the following best describes the process known as “mountaintop removal”?

The use of heavy equipment to move overburden downhill during the mining of coal

Which of the following best explains why more contaminants are leached when solid waste is crushed into small particles and put in contact with water than when the particles are large?

smaller particles have a larger surface area per unit volume than larger particles.

The Resource Conservation and Recovery Act is a U.S. law enacted in the 1970s that ________.

regulates how hazardous waste is managed

The Superfund, established to clean up hazardous waste sites in the United States, is a part of what legislation?

The Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act

Which of the following produces the largest amount of hazardous waste?

Industry

The process of extracting and separating gold in remote regions often results in environmental contamination with which of the following?

Cyanide

The EPA is charged with cleaning up brownfields, which are ________.

lands whose reuse or development is complicated by the presence of hazardous materials

Incineration is one solution to reduce the volume of municipal solid waste. Municipal solid waste can be used to produce energy at waste-to-energy plants. Based on the data in the graphs, which of the following materials would be best suited for incineration to reduce total volume, produce energy, and have minimal release of air pollutants?

Wood

Most municipal solid waste in the United States is disposed of in

Sanitary Landfills

Which of the following best describes acid mine drainage?

The leakage of water containing toxic materials from coal and metal mines

Which of the following would encourage recycling?

Decreasing taxes on recycled material

Of the following, which is the most serious immediate problem associated with sanitary landfills?

Leachate contamination of groundwater

One drawback of solution mining techniques is ________.

the potential for leakage of acids into groundwater

Of the following strategies to decrease the landfill volume of packaging material from food and other consumer products, the most energy efficient is

promoting the use of reusable containers for consumer goods

Environmentalists oppose the mining of deep sea mineral resources because

the deep sea environment is fragile and extremely vulnerable to the disturbances that would accompany development

Which of the following areas shown on the map of the United States has a history of coal deposits and is most likely to have mining operations?

B

This element in pyrite contributes to acid mine drainage.

Sulfur

Is a flammable gas produced by landfills

Methane

An advantage of recycling aluminum rather than disposing of it in landfills is that aluminum can be

produced from recycled metal using much less energy than is required for its production from aluminum ore

A naturally occurring solid chemical element with a distinct composition and a crystal structure is a(n) ________.

mineral

Which of the following identifies an unintended result from recycling programs?

When items are placed in recycling that cannot be recycled, the cost of recycling increases

Which of the following is an effect of high selenium concentrations in stream water?

Selenium causes birth defects in fish

Tantalum from African coltan is used primarily for the manufacture of ________.

electronics such as cell phones, computers, digital cameras