How does radiometric dating work?
Answer: Measures the ratio of a radioactive isotope to its decay product using the isotope's known half-life.
Explanation
Carbon-14 for recent organic material; uranium-lead for ancient rocks.
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Earth Science: Plate Tectonics, Rocks, and Weather (High School)
RocksAstronomyWaterAtmosphereWeatherWeatheringEarth's structureEarthquakesPlate tectonics
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Rocks
What is the law of superposition?
Answer: In undisturbed rock layers, the oldest layers are at the bottom and the youngest at the top.
Explanation
Basis of relative dating.
What is Mohs hardness scale?
Answer: A 1–10 scale of mineral scratch hardness, from talc (1) to diamond (10).
Explanation
A fingernail is about 2.5, a steel nail about 5.5.
How are fossils usually preserved?
Answer: In sedimentary rock, where organisms are buried in sediment that hardens.
Explanation
Igneous and metamorphic processes destroy most fossils.
Intrusive vs extrusive igneous rock?
Answer: Intrusive cools slowly underground with large crystals (granite); extrusive cools quickly at the surface with small crystals (basalt).
Explanation
Obsidian cools so fast it has no crystals.
What are the three rock types and how does each form?
Answer: Igneous: cooled magma or lava. Sedimentary: compacted and cemented sediments. Metamorphic: existing rock changed by heat and pressure.
Explanation
The rock cycle connects them.
Astronomy
What causes the phases of the Moon?
Answer: The changing portion of the Moon's sunlit half visible from Earth as the Moon orbits.
Explanation
A full cycle takes about 29.5 days.
Why does Earth have seasons?
Answer: The 23.5° tilt of Earth's axis changes the directness of sunlight through the year.
Explanation
Not distance from the Sun; Earth is closest in January.
Water
What causes ocean tides?
Answer: The gravitational pull of the Moon (mainly) and Sun on Earth's oceans.
Explanation
Spring tides occur when Sun, Moon, and Earth align; neap tides when at right angles.
What are the main steps of the water cycle?
Answer: Evaporation, condensation, precipitation, collection (runoff and infiltration).
Explanation
Transpiration from plants also adds vapor.
Atmosphere
What is the greenhouse effect?
Answer: Gases like CO2, methane, and water vapor trap heat radiated from Earth's surface, warming the planet.
Explanation
Natural and necessary; human emissions intensify it.
What are the layers of the atmosphere?
Answer: Troposphere (weather), stratosphere (ozone layer), mesosphere, thermosphere, exosphere.
Explanation
Temperature falls with altitude in the troposphere.
Weather
What causes a hurricane?
Answer: Warm ocean water (above about 26 °C) fuels a low-pressure system that organizes into a rotating storm.
Explanation
Rotates counterclockwise in the Northern Hemisphere.
How do clouds form?
Answer: Warm, moist air rises, cools to its dew point, and water vapor condenses on particles.
Explanation
Cumulus (puffy), stratus (layered), cirrus (high, wispy), nimbus (rain).
What is humidity and dew point?
Answer: Humidity is water vapor in the air; dew point is the temperature at which the air becomes saturated and condensation begins.
Explanation
Relative humidity is a percentage of the maximum.
What happens at a cold front vs a warm front?
Answer: Cold front: dense cold air wedges under warm air, causing brief heavy storms. Warm front: warm air slides over cold air, bringing long, light precipitation.
Explanation
Cold fronts move faster.
What is the difference between weather and climate?
Answer: Weather is short-term atmospheric conditions; climate is the long-term average over decades.
Explanation
Climate zones depend on latitude, altitude, and ocean currents.
What causes wind?
Answer: Air moving from high pressure to low pressure, deflected by the Coriolis effect.
Explanation
Global patterns: trade winds, westerlies, polar easterlies.
Weathering
What agents cause erosion?
Answer: Water, wind, ice (glaciers), and gravity.
Explanation
Deposition occurs when the agent slows and drops sediment.
Mechanical vs chemical weathering?
Answer: Mechanical breaks rock physically (frost wedging, roots); chemical changes its composition (acid rain dissolving limestone, oxidation).
Explanation
Weathering produces sediment; erosion moves it.
Earth's structure
What are the layers of the Earth?
Answer: Crust, mantle, outer core (liquid), inner core (solid).
Explanation
The lithosphere is the crust plus the rigid upper mantle; the asthenosphere beneath flows slowly.
What is the theory of plate tectonics?
Answer: Earth's lithosphere is broken into plates that move over the asthenosphere, driven by mantle convection and slab pull.
Explanation
Explains earthquakes, volcanoes, and mountain building.
Earthquakes
How does the moment magnitude scale work?
Answer: Each whole number is about 32 times more energy released than the previous one.
Explanation
Replaced the Richter scale for large quakes.
P waves vs S waves?
Answer: P waves are compressional, fastest, and travel through solids and liquids; S waves are shear waves, slower, and travel only through solids.
Explanation
S waves not passing through the outer core showed it is liquid.
What is the difference between an earthquake's focus and epicenter?
Answer: The focus is the point underground where rupture starts; the epicenter is the point on the surface directly above it.
Explanation
Seismographs record the waves.
Plate tectonics
What is a hotspot?
Answer: A stationary plume of hot mantle that creates volcanoes as a plate moves over it.
Explanation
The Hawaiian Islands formed this way.
What evidence supported continental drift?
Answer: Matching coastlines, matching fossils and rock types across oceans, glacial evidence, and later seafloor spreading and magnetic striping.
Explanation
Proposed by Alfred Wegener in 1912.
What happens at a transform boundary?
Answer: Plates slide past each other horizontally, causing earthquakes.
Explanation
Example: San Andreas Fault.
What happens at a convergent boundary?
Answer: Plates collide: oceanic crust subducts under continental or oceanic crust (trenches, volcanoes), or two continental plates fold into mountains.
Explanation
Examples: Andes, Himalayas, Mariana Trench.
What happens at a divergent boundary?
Answer: Plates move apart; magma rises to form new crust, creating mid-ocean ridges and rift valleys.
Explanation
Example: Mid-Atlantic Ridge.
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