Attention Class! Part 2 Trivia Quiz

Answer: James Hutton

Born in Edinburgh, Scotland, James Hutton received his doctorate of medicine in 1749, but became interested in geology after inheriting his father's farm. As he worked on clearing his land, he studied the rock formations. The culmination of his 25-year study was the publishing of a book called "Theory of the Earth" (1788).

While his theories were met with mixed reviews, they did lead scientists to further research concerning the formation and composition of geological processes.

Answer: Rock

Rocks are categorized into three major classes. Igneous rocks, such as basalt, granite, and obsidian are solidified magma that was released during a volcanic eruption. Sedimentary rocks, such as shale, limestone, and sandstone are formed at the earth's surface with help from natural phenomena like running water, wind, or ice. Marble and slate are types of metamorphic rocks that typically form from rocks that were deep within the earth that were changed by the high temperature and pressure there.

Rocks are always changing; while there is a process of change called the rock cycle, rocks can also change from one type to another in any order. This change, however, takes a long time - even millions of years.

Answer: Tectonic plates

It may be hard to believe that the land is constantly moving, but it is. The reason that the movement isn't noticed is that it takes place very slowly and may be only one to six inches a year. The lithosphere, which is made of the Earth's crust and upper mantle, moves in sections of land called tectonic plates.

There are seven major tectonic places, along with some minor plates, that cover the Earth. The area where the movement of the plates is most noticeable is at the plate boundaries. You may have heard of the San Andreas Fault in California. That is where the boundary between the North American Plate and the Pacific Plate is found. That explains why there seem to be so many earthquakes in California.

Answer: Core

The discovery of Earth's inner core was made in 1936 by Inge Lehmann, a Danish geophysiscist. It is obviously very difficult to retrieve concrete information about the core of the earth. Through the use of seismic waves and knowledge of the Earth's magnetic fields, it is thought to be a solid sphere, with a radius of approximately 760 miles. It is believed to be comprised of an iron-nickel alloy that has a temperature of about 9800 degrees Fahrenheit.

Answer: Pangaea

While Alfred Wegener worked on his theory of plate tectonics, in 1912 he also theorized that millions of years ago the earth was made up of one continuous landmass - a supercontinent - that he called Pangaea. Two hundred million years ago the supercontinent began to break apart into two smaller landmasses called Gondwana and Laurasia. Over time the land was further subdivided into the continents and islands that exist today.

Answer: Charles Richter

Charles Richter was an American scientist who, while working with Beno Gutenberg, developed the Richter scale in 1935; the scale, which was named for Richter because Gutenberg didn't care for the attention, measured the magnitude of earthquakes. Today other scales are used to more accurately measure earthquake magnitude.

On the Richter scale, if the magnitude of an earthquake was less than 3, it was considered to be a minor earthquake. A major earthquake was measured beginning at a 7. Although scientists believe that much stronger earthquakes have occurred in the past, the strongest recorded earthquake on the Richter scale was a 9.5. It occurred in Chile in 1960.

Answer: Ice Age

The Earth has a very long history, and during that long history there have been at least five major Ice Ages. During the Cryogenian Ice Age, estimated to have taken place between 720-635 million years ago, it is believed that glaciers extended all the way to the equator, an event called Snowball Earth. Several geological events may cause an Ice Age to occur, including changes in Earth's orbit, changes in ocean currents, and volcanic eruptions.

Answer: Frederich Mohs

Frederich Mohs was a German scientist who created a scale for mineral hardness in 1812 using the principle of scratch resistance, which is the idea that harder minerals can scratch softer ones. This process has been used for several centuries, but the Mohs scale went a step further, rating minerals on a scale of 1-10, based on their hardness.

The softest, talc, is rated 1 on the scale, with a 10 ranking the hardest, a diamond. The scale is still used today, especially by geologists doing field research.

Answer: Fossils

There are two main types of fossils, which are called body fossils and trace fossils. As the name suggests, body fossils, such as teeth or bones, are parts of an organism's real body that have been preserved. Trace fossils, such as footprints, have been preserved in rocks and minerals and show that an organism made contact with that surface at some point in time.

There are many ways that a fossil may form. In the case with amber, some fossils are found in fossilized tree sap. Other fossils, like the woolly mammoth found in Alaska in 1948, have been found frozen in the ice. If you have ever seen the fossil of a plant, it was likely formed by carbonization, where all of an organism dissolved except for its carbon components

Mary Anning was one of the earliest known fossil hunters. She lived in Lyme Regis, England, in the early 1800s. As a young girl she explored the formations along the English Channel, and found an ichthyosaur skeleton by the time she was twelve years old. She is considered today to be one of the earliest paleontologists.

Answer: Mid-ocean ridge

Mid-ocean ridges are formed at a divergent boundary, where two tectonic plates spread apart. When this happens, magma, hot liquid rock, flows out and forms a ridge. The Mid-Atlantic Ridge in the Atlantic Ocean, which is about 40,000 miles long, was first discovered in the 1950s by Marie Tharp and Bruce Heezen, who mapped the floor of the Atlantic Ocean.

Since then another mid-ocean ridge was found in the Pacific Ocean, which is called the East Pacific Rise. Stretching from the coast of Mexico almost to New Zealand, the East Pacific Rise is substantially shorter, measuring in at about 8,000 miles. Some scientists believe that it is actually longer, although part of it may run under North America.