GEOL 1025 Test 1

Yosemite National Park, UTC, and you are located on or in which of the following?

A. Lithosphere

B. Tectonic plate

C. Continental crust

D. The biosphere

E. All of the above

E. All of the above

Fossils in our National Parks are found primarily in which kind of rock?

A. Igneous

B. Sedimentary

C. Metamorphic

D. Granite

B. Sedimentary

Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park is named “Black” due to what characteristic?

A. Lack of sunlight that reaches the bottom of the canyon

B. Black volcanic rocks that line the sides and bottom of the canyon

C. The discoverer of the canyon in 1847 was Chelsey Black

A. Lack of sunlight that reaches the bottom of the canyon

Despite pollution, climate change, and plate tectonics, Earth’s atmospheric oxygen concentration remains constant. This is an example of what?

A. The hydrologic cycle

B. The Gaia Hypothesis

C. Homeostasis

D. The tectonic cycle

E. The carbon cycle

C. Homeostasis

Heat produces many of our national park wonders such as volcanoes, geysers, hot spots, and hot springs. The ultimate source of most of this heat is:

A. The sun

B. Radioactivity

C. Magical mineral transformations

D. Tidal forces from the moon and sun

B. Radioactivity

One of our Rocks of the Day (oooh) was a Woolly Mammoth tooth. Mammoth fossils are found in several national parks, including Waco Mammoth National Monument in Texas. Which of the following may have contributed to the extinction of the Woolly Mammoth about 4,000 years ago?

A. Hunting by man and other predators like polar bears

B. Climate change

C. Volcanic eruptions

D. Meteorite impact

E. All of the above

E. All of the above

Igneous rock extruded onto the surface of the earth, like that found in Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, is called:

A. Granite

B. Asthenosphere

C. Magma

D. Uniformitarianite

E. Lava

E. Lava

Fossilized wood in Petrified Forest National Park began its preservation process during flooding, when some trees were buried by a great depth of water and sediment quickly enough to prevent aerobic decay. Over a long period, water containing dissolved quartz seeped into the wood and replaced the organic cells with stone. What kind of material supplied the dissolved quartz?

A. Other petrified wood

B. The remains of swamp plants other than the trees

C. Volcanic ash

C. Volcanic ash

The water flowing through the Little River in Great Smoky Mountains National Park is about how old?

A. A few days

B. Hundreds of years

C. A million years or so

D. Several billions of years

D. Several billions of years

The “Conscience Pile” in Petrified Forest National Park is related to what?

A. Stolen, and eventually returned pieces of fossilized wood

B. A sacred Native American pile of spectacular specimens of rainbow fossil wood

C. The remains of an entire upright forest of fossilized trees complete with many of their branches

A. Stolen, and eventually returned pieces of fossilized wood

The Great Unconformity in the Grand Canyon is one of many unconformities found in national parks. The significance of unconformities is:

A. They are areas within rock formations that contain large quantities of water

B. They are ancient large faults, like the San Andreas, along which large relative movements take place

C. They show that dinosaurs existed throughout the globe

D. They represent large gaps in geological time during which no rocks were deposited in a region

D. They represent large gaps in geological time during which no rocks were deposited in a region

The Principle of Uniformitarianism implies that:

A. Mt. St. Helens will erupt again

B. The Colorado River will continue to erode the Grand Canyon

C. Earthquakes will continue to plague Yosemite National Park

D. Little River in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park will flood again in the future

E. All of the above

E. All of the above

Padre Island National Seashore in Texas was particularly impacted by Hurricane Harvey. Historic levels of flooding occurred in nearby Houston, TX. While 50+ inches of rain was the main cause, which of the following significantly contributed to the flooding?

A. Trump’s repeal of flood protection laws

B. Large-scale destruction of wetlands and creation of impervious surfaces

C. Several large dam failures

D. Lack of adequate mapping to identify flood-prone areas

E. All of the above

B. Large-scale destruction of wetlands and creation of impervious surfaces

Lord Kelvin estimated the geothermal gradient, a rate at which Earth’s temperature increases with depth. How much warmer will it be at a depth of 10,000 feet below Mammoth Cave National Park?

A. 15 degrees F

B. 150 degrees F

C. 1500 degrees F

D. Billions of degrees F

E. It would not be any hotter than downtown Chattanooga

B. 150 degrees F

Due to extinctions and other changes caused by man, many geologists advocate that the current epoch of geological time be renamed what?

A. Humanocene

B. Homocene

C. 6th Major Extinction Event

D. Trumpozoic

E. Anthropocene

E. Anthropocene

We live in which geological era?

A. Cenozoic

B. Mesozoic

C. Paleozoic

D. Anthropocene

E. Holocene

A. Cenozoic

In Big Bend National Park, younger Cenozoic sedimentary rocks overlie older Mesozoic rocks. This is an example of:

A. The Law of Superposition

B. The Law of Original Horizontality

C. An unconformity

D. Uniformitarianism

E. Fake news

A. The Law of Superposition

Pursuing his love of science, especially geology, this founder of the Sierra Club correctly theorized that glaciers had sculpted many features of the Yosemite Valley. His passion contributed to the advancement of national parks. This person was:

A. John Wesley Powell

B. Teddy Roosevelt

C. John Muir

D. Abe Lincoln

E. Stephen Mather

C. John Muir

According to most geologists, the earth is about how old?

A. 20 million years

B. 4.6 billion years

C. 12 billion years

D. 6,000 years

E. About a billion years

B. 4.6 billion years

Fossil limestone structures formed by photosynthesizing bacteria (cyanobacteria) that are found in the Grand Canyon and Glacier National Parks are called stromatolites (one of our Rock of the Day - oooh). What is the significance of this life form?

A. They oxygenated Earth’s atmosphere from about 3 billion to 1 billion years ago during the Great Oxygenation Event

B. They precipitated out of sea water to form large deposits of gypsum

C. They form an almost un-erodible cap rock over the Grand Canyon

D. They were food for ancient sea creatures that eventually evolved into dinosaurs

A. They oxygenated the Earth’s atmosphere from about 3 billion to 1 billion years ago during the Great Oxygenation Event

Soil, derived from weathered rock, is one of our most precious nonrenewable resources, and mankind’s activities are causing landslides, flooding, erosion, and sedimentation even in our National Parks! One inch of topsoil may require how long to form?

A. 10 years

B. 100 years

C. 1,000 years

D. Millions of years

E. Once lost, it can never be reformed

C. 1,000 years

Most national parks have geological features and materials being formed in the current geological period, in which we live. What is its name?

A. Cenozoic

B. Mesozoic

C. Paleozoic

D. Quaternary

E. Holocene

D. Quaternary

Artificial flooding of the Grand Canyon was initiated in 1996 to remediate issues associated with what geological issue?

A. Water temperature

B. Sediment replenishment

C. Release of fish species from Lake Powell into the Grand Canyon

B. Sediment replenishment

The first action toward creating U.S. national parks was in 1832, when Congress created what?

A. Hot Springs Reservation Arkansas Territory which became Hot Springs National Park

B. Yellowstone National Park

C. The Organic Act

D. Farmville

A. Hot Springs Reservation Arkansas Territory which became Hot Springs National Park

Springs in the Grand Canyon are important because

A. They assist in the erosive processes that continue to form the Grand Canyon

B. They provide base flow to the Colorado River

C. They support valuable riparian habitats, where species diversity is 100 to 500 times greater than the surrounding areas

D. They provide drinking water for wildlife and humans in an arid environment

E. All of the above

E. All of the above

The modern Grand Canyon is about how old?

A. 50,000 years

B. 5-10 million years

C. A few billion years

D. As old as the earth

B. 5-10 million years

Which of the following contributed most to the developing knowledge about the Earth’s age?

A. Buffon’s huge iron balls

B. John Joly’s ocean saltiness work

C. Radiometric dating

D. Cuvier’s fossils

E. Darwin’s Theory of Evolution

C. Radiometic dating

The Redwall Limestone in the Grand Canyon is red colored because

A. It is stained by an overlying rock formation that contains iron

B. Native Americans painted it over a period of hundreds of years as a sacrificial offering

C. It is a reflection from the muddy Colorado River below

D. It is not really red but is named so after a tragic stampede of bison that ran over one of the limestone cliffs

A. It is stained by an overlying rock formation that contains iron

Carbon films and molds are found in many National Parks. These are types of what?

A. Homeostatic responses to climate change

B. Algae in streams

C. Fossils

D. Minerals

E. Fracking chemicals

C. Fossils

The Colorado River in Grand Canyon National Park has been dammed at least 13 times in geological history by what?

A. Landslides

B. Beavers

C. Native Americans

D. Log jams and ice flows

E. Lava flows

E. Lava flows

22,000 years ago, Death Valley National Park was occupied by what feature?

A. A large volcano that spewed lava which killed the valley floor

B. It was a desert similar to what it is now

C. Lake Manly

D. A large glacier

C. Lake Manly

Death Valley’s Racetrack Playa shifting boulders are thought to move due to what?

A. Aliens from another planet

B. Pranksters like those who make crop circles

C. Small, but frequent earthquakes

D. Wind driving the boulders through ice and mud

D. Wind driving the boulders through ice and mud

Over 6,000 vertical feet of alternating cliffs, slopes, and terraces which extends horizontally about 150 miles from the north rim of the Grand Canyon in northern Arizona to the top of the Paunsaugunt Plateau in southern Utah is called what?

A. The Colorado Plateau

B. The Grand Escalade

C. The Grand Staircase

D. Powell’s Cross Section

C. The Grand Staircase

What is at the very bottom of the Grand Canyon’s stratigraphic sequence?

A. Sedimentary rocks like the Muav Limestone

B. Precambrian igneous and metamorphic rocks like the Vishnu Schist (a Rock of the Day)

C. The only caves in the park

B. Precambrian igneous and metamorphic rocks like the Vishnu Schist (a Rock of the Day)

Boulders, gravel, sand, silt - everything that erodes off the mountains and gets washed out of the canyons during flash floods, spread out on the Death Valley floor. These landforms are

A. Playas

B. Terrashots

C. Slot canyons

D. Alluvial fans

D. Alluvial fans

A type of rock found in the Appalachian and Rocky Mountain national park settings that has been heated and/or pressurized (but not melted) due to burial or tectonic forces is termed

A. Sedimentary

B. Metamorphic

C. Igneous

D. Volcanic

B. Metamorphic

The first explorer of the Grand Canyon’s Colorado River, a one-armed Civil War veteran, was

A. John Joly

B. John Wesley Powell

C. Henry Washburn

D. George Catlin

E. Davy Crockett

B. John Wesley Powell

Which of the following National Parks would contain elements of the cryosphere?

A. Glacier National Park in Montana

B. Death Valley National Park in California

C. Biscayne Bay National Park in Florida

D. Hot Springs National Park in Arkansas

A. Glacier National Park in Montana

The building of the Glen Canyon Dam has had significant environmental impacts on which national park?

A. Yellowstone

B. The Everglades

C. Death Valley

D. The Grand Canyon

E. Trump Casino

D. The Grand Canyon

The environmental impacts from the Glen Canyon Dam are related to which of the following?

A. Sediment

B. Water flow

C. Water temperature

D. All of the above

D. All of the above

Transpiration and evaporation are two important processes in the hydrologic cycle. Collectively these two processes are referred to as

A. Condensation

B. Precipitation

C. Evapotranspiration

D. Infiltration

C. Evapotranspiration

Elements are to minerals as minerals are to

A. Compounds

B. Atoms

C. Sediments

D. Lithosphere

E. Rocks

E. Rocks

What is the Colorado Plateau?

A. The only place in the world where rocks over one billion years old are found

B. A large, relatively flat uplifted section of Earth’s crust in the western USA where we find the Grand Canyon and other national parks

C. Highly folded and metamorphic rocks underlying the Grand Staircase

D. A National Park in Utah

B. A large, relatively flat uplifted section of Earth’s crust in the western USA where we find the Grand Canyon and other national parks

Gypsum and halite (rock salt) are formed by the evaporation of sea water. We will find that these rocks are found in Death Valley National Park and are important in Arches National Park. These sedimentary rocks are called

A. Evaporites

B. Lava

C. Uniformitarianistic rocks

D. Zionite

A. Evaporites

Sedimentary rocks are deposited in the environment in horizontal layers, such as those found in Badlands National Park and the Grand Canyon. This geologic “law” is called

A. The Law of Superposition

B. Huttonism

C. The Law of Original Horizontality

D. Uniformitarianism

C. The Law of Original Horizontality

Some of the caves in the Grand Canyon were a historic source of what?

A. Gold and silver

B. Talc

C. Water

D. Native American treasure

E. Guano

E. Guano

One of our Rocks of the Day (oooh) was the Zebra Mussel, an invasive species that threatens waters of the United States including National Parks like Glacier National Park and Lake Mead National Recreation Area. Which of the following is a major impact from this species?

A. Clarification of water in lakes

B. Changes in fish and other aquatic life populations and varieties in invaded water bodies

C. Clogging of pipes

D. All of the above

D. All of the above

The largest mountain on Earth is

A. Mt. Everest, Himalayas

B. Mauna Loa, Hawaii Volcanoes National Park

C. Mt. Rainier, Rainier National Park

D. Olympus Mons on Mars

E. Kelsey’s Mountain near I-75 and US 10 in Georgia

B. Mauna Loa, Hawaii Volcanoes National Park

James Lovelock stated that “the biosphere - atmosphere, oceans, climate, Earth’s crust and biota, living organisms, is regulated as a homeostatic system in conditions comfortable for the living organisms.” This is known as

A. The Theory of Evolution

B. The Theory of Plate Tectonics

C. Gaia Hypothesis

D. Huttonism

E. Trumpism

C. Gaia Hypothesis

Which of the following geological cycles is most closely tied with climate change impacts in our national parks?

A. The rock cycle

B. The tectonic cycle

C. The bicycle

D. The nitrogen cycle

E. The hydrologic cycle

E. The hydrologic cycle