Question: We now know a lot about the big processes that shape the Earth’s geology. Which of the following is NOT correct about that knowledge?

Answer: Almost all of the motion of lithospheric plates is vertical, with almost no horizontal motion.

Question: What tectonic setting is primarily responsible for producing Mt. St Helens?

Answer: Push-together Subduction

Question: Yellowstone is in some ways similar to Hawaii. This is because both are:

Answer: Hot spot volcanic regions

Question: Suppose that tomorrow someone bulldozed all the rocks in the Appalachians, right down to sea level, and shipped all of those bulldozed rocks to Uzbekistan to build ski slopes. A few thousand years from now, we probably would find that the surface of the Earth exposed by the bulldozers was:

Answer: Almost, but not quite, as high as the Appalachians are today, because the roots of the mountains bobbed up.

Question: The cartoon above illustrates a specific geologic process. Which of the additional geologic images DOES NOT feature this same process at work?

Answer: mountain with snow on top

Question: Continents:

Answer: Are the “unsinkable” part of the solid Earth; although a little of a continent might go down, most continental material stays near the surface.

Question: What sort of rock is pictured above?

Answer: Metamorphic; The rock separated into layers as it was cooked and squeezed deep in a mountain range.

Question: A 100-foot-high tsunami wave nearly kills you in your boat. It is likely that:

Answer: Your boat was in shallow water near the shore, because tsunami waves are usually long and low out in the deep water of the central ocean, but pile up to become high when slowed by the friction in shallow water near the shore.

Question: Tsunamis:

Answer: Can be predicted with some accuracy seconds to hours before the waves strike in most cases, allowing quick warnings to save many lives

Question: The arrows point to an interesting feature, high in a road cut in the folded Appalachians of western Maryland.

What happened here?

Answer: Push-together forces broke a layer during folding and shoved one side over the other side.