1. GEOLOGY UNIT REVIEW
By Mrs. Susan Dennison

2. What is a landform?
A landform is a physical feature of the Earth’s surface.

3. What is weathering?
Weathering is the process of breaking rock into soil, sand, or other tiny pieces.

4. What is erosion?
Erosion is the process of moving sediment from one place to another.

5. Why would footprints on the Moon last for hundreds of years?
There is no wind or water to erode the footprints!

6. What is deposition?
Deposition is the process of dropping, or depositing, sediment in a new location.
Some rivers deposit sediment
in broad areas of their “mouths,” called deltas. The Mississippi River delta is one of the largest in the world. Sediment was deposited at the mouth, moved by the flow of the river.

7. What is mass movement?
Mass movement is the downhill movement of rock and soil because of gravity.

8. How can we describe Earth’s crust?
The Earth’s crust is the outer layer of Earth and made of solid rock. It is the thinnest layer.

9. How can we describe the mantle?
The mantle is the layer of rock below the Earth’s crust. Just under the crust, it is solid. It is very hot, and the other part of the mantle is soft, like melted candy.

10. How can we describe the core?
The core is Earth’s hottest layer, the center of the planet. It is composed of an outer core of liquid (molten) iron and an inner core of solid iron (metal).

11. What would be a good model of the Earth’s layers?
A peach would be a good model of the Earth’s layers because it has a thin skin and a hard pit in the center.

12. If the core is the hottest layer, why is it still solid?
The core is solid because of the great amount of pressure at the center of the Earth!

13. What is a plate?
A plate is a rigid block of crust and upper mantle. There are 12 major plates on Earth’s surface that fit together like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. They “float” on the soft part of the mantle. As pressure and heat make the mantle move, the plates move, too.

14. What does it mean to say that the Earth’s plates “float” on the mantle?
The plates float on the soft rock of the lower mantle, which has currents, like water.

15. Which would be a better model of Earth’s plates, a tile floor or a stack of dishes?
A tile floor would be better because the plates are next to one another, not stacked up like dishes.

16. What is magma?
Magma is molten (liquid) rock from the Earth’s mantle.

17. What is a volcano?
A volcano is an opening in Earth’s crust through which lava flows.

18. What is an earthquake?
An earthquake is a shaking of the ground caused by the sudden release of energy in Earth’s crust.

19. What is a fault?
A fault is a place where pieces of the Earth’s crust move. San Andreas fault in California is known as a major location of quakes.

20. What is continental drift?
Continental drift is the theory of how Earth’s continents move over its surface.

21. What does it mean to say that the “Atlantic Ocean is getting wider, pushing Europe and North America apart”?
The North American and European plates are moving away from each other!

22. What is Pangea?
Pangea is the theoretical “supercontinent” that contained all of Earth’s land about 225 million years ago.

23. What are fossils?
Fossils are the remains or traces of past life found in the Earth’s crust.

24. How are mountains formed?
Mountains are formed when two continental plates pull apart, push together, or slide against one another.
The Grand Tetons are mountains that were
formed by boundaries of plates pushing
rock upward.

25. The Himalayas are the world’s tallest mountains
The Himalayas are the world’s tallest mountains. They were formed by convergent plate movement.