McMaster University

EARTH SC 2gg3

Quiz 1

1)Which wave of a major tsunami is most likely to be the highest?

1. First
2. Second
3. Third
4. None of these

2. Which is a major fault that often shows a progressive migration along its length with time?

1. The Alpine Fault in New Zealand
2. The Haicheng Fault in China
3. The North Anatolian Fault in Turkey
4. The New Madrid Fault in Missouri

3. Which types of earthquake waves do the most damage?

1. Compressional waves
2. Shear waves
3. Body waves
4. Surface waves

4. The Magnetic stripes of the seafloor are considered evidence of seafloor spreading and     .

1. Subduction in the rift valleys
2. Spreading centers in the trenches
3. Changes in the Earth’s axis of rotation
4. Periodic reversals in the polarity of Earth’s magnetic field

5. Why does oceanic lithosphere almost always sink beneath the continental lithosphere at the convergent plate boundaries?

1. Oceanic lithosphere moves so slowly that it can only sink
2. Oceanic lithosphere is at the bottom of the ocean, so it can’t float high enough to ride over a continent
3. Oceanic lithosphere is almost twice as dense as the underlying mantle
4. Oceanic lithosphere is denser than continental lithosphere

6. Tsunamis are most commonly generated by:

1. Volcanoes
2. Landslides
3. Earthquakes
4. Asteroids

7. Rapid (or cataclysmic) disasters include:

1. Droughts and earthquakes
2. Only geophysical disasters
3. Earthquakes and cyclonic storms
4. Droughts and desertification

8. The costs of catastrophic events continue to increase primarily because

                        .

1. More people are moving into more hazardous areas
2. Not enough people pay for insurance in hazardous areas to even out the costs ·
3. Insurance companies are refusing to insure most natural hazard losses
4. Natural hazards are becoming more difficult to understand

9. Which of the following is true?

1. Earth’s crust is denser than the mantle
2. Earth’s curst is thicker than the mantle
3. Earth’s crust is less dense than the mantle
4. Earth’s crust is part of the asthenosphere and equivalent to it in composition

10. Why do ships in the open ocean NOT notice passage of the tsunami wave?

1. The wave goes by so fast that it is gone before anyone notices
2. The long time between wave crests dictates that the wave flanks have almost no slope
3. Ships are carried on the crest of the wave, so they don’t feel any up or down motion
4. Although the wave crests are several hundred meters high, the time between them is several hours, so no one notices

11. Iceland is an example of:

1. Continental spreading zone
2. Oceanic spreading zone
3. Transform boundary
4. Collision zone

12. Earthquakes, tsunamis and volcanic eruptions are defined as:

1. The hydro-meteorogical disasters
2. The geographical disasters
3. The geophysical disasters
4. The catastrophes

13. Lithosphere is:

1. Inner, hotter, easily deformed part of the Earth
2. Upper part of the asthenosphere
3. Just the Earth’s crust
4. The stiff and rigid outer rind of our plane that includes part of the upper mantle and crust

14. What is a transform boundary characterized by?

1. The movement of plates away from each other
2. The movement of one plate down against another
3. The movement of one plate over another
4. Lithospheric plates sliding past each other

15. About how high are the largest earthquake-caused tsunami waves in bays?

1. About 3 meters
2. About 30 meters
3. About 100 meters
4. About 300 meters

16. The term “strain” (elastic rebound theory) refers to:

1. To the forces imposed on a rock
2. The change in shape of the rock in response to the imposed stress
3. The change in energy of the earthquake
4. The deformation of the tectonic fault

17. Moment magnitude depends on what main factor(s)?

1. Total offset distance on the fault during the earthquake
2. Frequency of movement of the earthquake waves and the total time of shaking
3. Shear strength of the rocks displaced, total surface area of rocks ruptured, and average slip distance on the fault
4. Amplitude of seismograph swing at the first movement of arrival of shaking

18. The name of a process by which water-saturated sediment temporarily loses strength and acts as a fluid is: a) Saturation

2. Liquefaction
3. Liquidation
4. Subduction

19. The largest tsunami in recent years occurred in:

1. The Pacific ocean
2. The Atlantic ocean
3. The Arctic ocean
4. The Indian ocean

20. Why do they Hawaiian Islands form a chain of volcanoes?

1. The mantle below flows is slowly to the east, creating new volcanoes as it goes
2. The Hawaiian Islands are not part of a chain
3. The crack in the lithosphere is progressively splitting eastward and southward, permitting magma to rise along a line
4. The lithosphere carrying Hawaii slowly moves over a hotspot feeding basalt magma overlying a volcano

21. Which of the following have NOT been used to suggest that an earthquake may be coming?

1. Micro-earthquakes
2. Strange animal behavior
3. Changes in groundwater level
4. Changes in atmospheric pressure

22. When is a large event such as a major earthquake not a disaster?

1. When it happens in a far away country that we do not care about
2. When it happens to less than 10,000 people
3. When it happens to less than 1,000 people
4. When it happens in an area without any people

23. Although the Atlantic coast of North America experiences few large earthquakes, what specific other event could generate a large tsunami wave that could cause a catastrophic damage there?

1. A giant subduction-zone earthquake near the coast of Africa
2. A giant subduction-zone earthquake along the eastern edge of North America
3. A giant transform-fault earthquake on the Atlantic Ocean floor
4. Flank collapse of a volcano in the Canary Islands

24. The period of a tsunamis is:

1. The average speed of wave
2. The time between waves
3. The time between earthquakes
4. The average height of wave

25. Intensity is a measure of:

1. How strongly people feel the shaking and the severity of the damage it causes on the Richter scale
2. Energy released during an earthquake as measured on the Mercalli scale

3. How strongly people feel the shaking and the severity of the damage it causes on the Mercalli scale
4. Energy released during an earthquake as measured on the Richter scale

26. Why are even good swimmers often killed by tsunamis?

1. They are carried hundreds of kilometers offshore in the receding wave and cant’ swim that far
2. They are held down by the incredible undertow and they drown
3. They are impacted by the debris carried in the waves
4. They are pushed so deep under the water surface that they get the bends

27. The Himalayas is an example of:

1. Spreading zone
2. Transform boundary
3. Collision zone
4. Divergent boundary

28. If the Atlantic Ocean floor is getting wider, why is the Earth not becoming larger?

1. It melts at oceanic transform faults
2. It is becoming denser so it takes up more space
3. Old ocean floor sinks at subduction zones (trenches)
4. The Atlantic Ocean floor is not getting wider

29. Mitigation does not include:

1. Land-use planning
2. Public education
3. Insurance
4. Scientific forecast of a hazardous event

30. Natural disasters generally involve which of the following?

1. Events with a single clear-cut cause
2. Events that involve overlapping natural cause
3. Events who wholly caused by the activities of man
4. Events that are unaffected by the activities of man

31. What is a seismic gap?

1. A part of an active fault
2. A part of an active fault with a long time between the earthquakes
3. A pronounced crevice along a fault
4. A gaping crack created by fault movement

32. The epicenter is: