Weathering

Multiple Choice Questions for Glaciers and Glaciation - Chapter 12

Each chapter will include a few questions designed to test your knowledge of material covered in the chapter and in the Internet-based resources. Your answers are not being recorded. Try the following.

  1. Which of the following depositional features would you look for to assess whether an area had undergone glaciation?

    horns, aretes or cols
    hanging valleys
    terminal moraines
    all of the above

  2. Which of the following erosional features would you look for to assess whether an area had undergone glaciation?

    horns, aretes or cols
    hanging valleys
    waterfalls
    all of the above

  3. Active continental glaciation may produce world-wide transgressions lasting several tens of millions of years?

    yes
    no

  4. Glaciation forms by ___________ of snow.

    burial and metamorphism of snow
    melting and refreezing
    erosion and deposition
    precipitation and melting

  5. Valley glaciers are also known as _________ glaciers.

    lowland
    upland
    alpine
    gorge

  6. High latitudes are cold because ___________ .

    there are fewer hours of sunlight than at the equator
    there is more snow than at the equator
    the angle between the Sun's rays and the Earth's surface is different than at the equator
    the Earth's poles are further from the Sun than the Earth's equator

  7. At the equator, at what altitude does the snow line lie?

    less than 1000 meters
    about 2500 meters
    about 5000 meters
    about 7500 meters

  8. Which of the following lists is written in the order of increasing metamorphism?

    snow ... granular ice ... firn ... glacial ice
    snow ... firn ... glacial ice ... granular ice
    snow ... firn ... granular ice ... glacial ice
    snow ... granular ice ... glacial ice ... firn

  9. Which of the following refers to the total amount of ice lost from a glacier each year?

    meltage
    accumulation
    sublimation
    ablation

  10. The transformation from ice to gaseous water vapor is called _________ .

    melting
    sublimation
    boiling
    condensation

  11. Which of the following is not a form of ablation?

    melting
    sublimation
    calving
    all of these are processes contributing to ablation

  12. Cold, dry glaciers move ___________

    mostly by plastic flow
    mostly by basal slip
    by both basal slip and plastic flow
    by neither basal slip nor plastic flow

  13. What is the name for an amphitheater-like hollow that forms at the head of a glacier?

    kettle
    moraine
    cirque
    horn

  14. Which of the following can be used to determine the direction a continental glacier moved?

    striations
    roches mountonees
    drumlins
    all of these

  15. In a continental glacier, ice flows ________ .

    from the edges to the center
    from the center to the edges
    from north to south
    from south to north

  16. Varve deposits are formed when ________ is deposited in the summer and _____ is deposited in the winter

    coarse silt ... fine clay
    gravel ... sand
    fine clay ... sand
    coarse silt ... gravel

  17. Which of the following agents of erosion deposits the most poorly sorted sediment?

    wind
    ice
    streams
    ocean currents

  18. When two cirques at the heads of adjacent valleys meet at the mountaintop, the produce a sharp, jagged crest called a(n) __________ .

    arete
    fjord
    drumlin
    moraine

  19. Which of the following are not water-laid deposits associated with glaciers?

    moraines
    kames
    eskers
    varves

  20. Kettles are formed by ___________ .

    meltwater streams running through glacial tunnels
    large blocks of ice left by a glacier in its outwash plain
    seasonal deposition of coarse and fine sediment
    melting permafrost

  21. During the peak of the last ice age, sea level was about ______ lower than sea level today.

    1 meter lower
    10 meters lower
    100 meters lower
    1000 meters lower

  22. How many distinct glaciations affected North America during the Pleistocene?

    one
    two
    three
    four

  23. The recent ice ages occurred during the ______ Epoch.

    Pliocene
    Permian
    Pleistocene
    Paleozoic

  24. Widespread glacial erosion and sedimentation do not affect _________.

    water discharge and sediment loads of major river systems
    desertification of semi-arid lands
    quantity of sediment delivered to the oceans
    erosion and sedimentation in coastal areas on shallow continental shelves

  25. Large masses of ice on land that show evidence of movement are called ______.

    ice packs
    glaciers
    icebergs
    all of these

  26. Ice covers what percentage of the Antarctic continent?

    50%
    75%
    90%
    100%

  27. A deposit of snow contains approximately 90% air. Glacial ice, which forms from snow, contains approximately _______ air.

    90%
    50%
    25%
    less than 20%

  28. If accumulation exceeds ablation then _______..

    the glacial ice will flow downhill but the end of the glacier will move uphill
    the glacial ice will flow downhill and the end of the glacier will move downhill
    the glacial ice will flow uphill and the end of the glacier will move uphill
    the glacial ice will flow uphill but the end of the glacier will move downhill

  29. Crevasses form because _________.

    the glacial surface partially melts, leaving holes and cracks
    glacial meltwater erodes small valleys as glacial rivers flow
    low confining pressure at the surface causes cracks as the ice flows
    a glacial calving process has not been completed

  30. In this cross-section of a glacier, the arrows point to _______..

    ablation surfaces
    blocks of bedrock
    crevasses
    ice streams

  31. If the relative length of the arrows represents relative speed of flow, the flow pattern shown here is most likely that of ____________..

    a valley glacier
    a continental glacier
    either a valley glacier or a continental glacier
    neither a valley nor a continental glacier

  32. Striations or glacial groves would form __________ to the direction of movement shown above.

    perpendicular
    parallel
    either perpendicular or parallel
    all of the above

  33. What is the term for a sudden period of fast movement of a valley glacier?

    sublimation
    surge
    firn
    drift

  34. The cross-sectional diagram depicts a __________.

    roche-moutonee
    drumlin
    kame
    esker

  35. A hanging valley is ____________.

    a valley with more than three tributaries feeding into it.
    a valley with many loose rocks in its walls ready for a landslide
    a valley with its floor high above the main valley floor
    a valley feeding into many fjords

  36. Erratics are ___________.

    cross beds which do not match the overall outwash cross-bedding scheme
    large boulders deposited randomly by glaciers
    valleys with glacial striations that oppose the striations in adjacent valleys
    conflicting dates of glaciation obtained by dating organic matter found in glacial deposits

  37. Which feature forms where two lateral moraines merge?

    end moraine
    medial moraine
    ground moraines
    eskers

  38. Which of the following is a glacial deposit and not a glacial erosional feature?

    a cirque
    a moraine
    an arete
    a horn

  39. Large, streamlined hills of till and bedrock that form in come areas subjected to continental glaciation are called _________.

    aretes
    kame
    eskers
    drumlins

  40. Which of the following would be best for a sand and gravel pit?

    arete
    kame
    varve
    a drumlin

  41. The Earth is expected to go back into a period of glaciation over the next ______ years.

    100
    1,000
    10,000
    100,000

  42. Approximately how thick was the ice cap that covered northern North America during the last ice age?

    300 meters
    1,000 meters
    3,000 meters
    10,000 meters

  43. The degree of ellipticity of Earth's orbit around the sun is called ______.

    ellipticality
    eccentricity
    ovality
    precession

  44. Precession describes________.

    the movement of ice sheets away from the poles
    the movement of glacial ice through winding valleys
    the wobble of the Earth's axis of rotation
    the changes in climate as the Earth warms or cools

  45. The Little Ice Age of 1400-1650 AD is characterized as such in part because______.

    the Red Sea froze over
    the Baltic Sea froze over
    the Dead Sea froze over
    the Atlantic Ocean froze over

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