Exploring Arizona Trivia Quiz

Answer: Meteor Crater

The U.S. Board on Geographic Names normally names geographic features after the nearest post office. The nearest post office to the meteor crater is Meteor, Arizona, hence the name. Near Winslow, the site is on private land owned by the Barringer family.

The 1 mile (1.6 km)-wide crater is rectangular in shape, probably due to faulting of the rock strata rather than the shape of the meteor, which landed about 50,000 years ago.

Answer: petrified wood

Among the unusual geological formations in Arizona is the Petrified Forest National Park. It dates to the Triassic period, about 225 million years ago when the local climate was sub-tropical. When trees fell into the water some were quickly covered and became fossilized. Arizona named petrified wood the state fossil in 1988.

Answer: Monument Valley

Located in Arizona and Utah, near where the two states meet New Mexico and Colorado, Monument Valley is colored red from iron oxide and blue from manganese oxide. Two buttes are nicknamed "the mittens" from their shape. John Ford and other directors used the valley so often that for many moviegoers, it became what they pictured as the American west.

Answer: Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo

As part of the settlement of the Mexican-American War (1846-48), the U.S. gave Mexico 15 million dollars (about 410 million today) for what would become California, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, Utah and parts of Wyoming and Colorado. The treaty was signed in a neighborhood of Mexico City called Villa de Guadalupe Hidalgo.

More land was added to southern Arizona and New Mexico through the Gadsden Purchase of 1853.

Answer: false

Arizona has a dry climate with little overall rainfall but there is much temperature variance, mainly because of differences in altitude. The state has the metropolitan area with the most days over 100°F/38°C per year (Phoenix) and the metropolitan area in the lower 48 states with the most days with a low temperature below freezing (Flagstaff).

There are some ski areas in the northern part of the state, and one in the south.

Answer: copper

Half of the copper mined in America comes from Arizona, over 700,000 metric tons a year. A common use for copper is the manufacture of water pipes. There is enough copper in the dome of the state capitol building in Phoenix to make 4,800,000 pennies.

Bisbee, located in the Mule Mountains in Cochise County, was known as the Queen of the Copper Camps. During its heyday the town was the largest city between Saint Louis, Missouri and San Francisco, California.

Answer: turquoise

Turquoise is usually found near copper deposits so it is not surprising that there is a lot of it in copper-rich Arizona. Native Americans in the southwest have used it in jewelry for over 2,000 years. The Kingman Mine, one of the largest turquoise producers in Arizona, was established in the 1880s on the site where native Americans had been mining it for over a millennia. Arizona turquoise is considered among the finest in the world and is often seen inlaid in the slides of bolo ties, which happen to be Arizona's state neckwear.

Answer: palo verde

In 1954, Arizona named the palo verde as the state tree. It's a very interesting desert dweller. It is considered drought deciduous; it will drop its leaves in times of little rainfall. Its name means green stick in Spanish because of the green color of its bark and branches. The green is actually chlorophyll and can account for up to 75% of the sugar produced by photosynthesis in a palo verde, with only a quarter coming from the leaves.

As for the clue, Baton Rouge (red stick in French) is the capital of Louisiana.

Answer: Mogollon Rim

The Mogollon Rim is an escarpment, almost 2,000 ft./610 m. high in places, that runs east to west along the Colorado Plateau for about 200 mi./320 km. from central Arizona to New Mexico. Composed of limestone and sandstone it was created by faulting and erosion. Because of its rapid change in height it is a dividing line for flora and fauna species, from Rocky Mountain types in the north to more desert-types in the south.

Answer: cotton

At one time over 800,000 acres of cotton were grown in Arizona. Though now the acreage is about 200,000, cotton is still an important export. White settlers learned about its cultivation from native Americans. Pima cotton is named for the Pima indian tribe who first grew it. Both natives and settlers found ways to cultivate it using less water than might be expected.

In 1917, Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company bought land to cultivate long staple cotton for airplane tires, leading to the eventual founding of the city of Goodyear, which is a suburb of Phoenix.