Questions and Answers of Integrated Science

Explain the greenhouse effect. Is a greenhouse a good analogy for Earth’s atmosphere? Explain.
Is it possible for any agent of erosion to erode the land to below sea level? Provide evidence or some observation to support your answer.
Speculate if the continents will ever be weathered and eroded flat at sea level. Provide evidence to support your speculation.
What are the significant similarities and differences between weathering and erosion?
Analyze why you would expect most earthquakes to occur as localized, shallow occurrences near a plate boundary.
Explain the combination of variables that results in solid rock layers folding rather than faulting.
What are the significant similarities and differences between elastic deformation and plastic deformation?
Does the theory of plate tectonics support or not support the principle of uniformity? Provide evidence to support your answer.
Evaluate the statement “the present is the key to the past” as it represents the principle of uniformity. What evidence supports this principle?
Discuss all the reasons you can in favor of and in opposition to clearing away and burning tropical rainforests for agricultural purposes.
Why would mechanical weathering speed up chemical weathering in a humid climate but not in a dry climate?
Compare the materials deposited by streams, wind, and glaciers.
Compare the features caused by stream erosion, wind erosion, and glacial erosion.
Explain why glacial erosion produces a U-shaped valley, but stream erosion produces a V-shaped valley.
Could a glacier erode the land lower than sea level? Explain.
What is rock flour and how is it produced?
Describe the characteristic features associated with stream erosion as the stream valley passes through the stages of youth, maturity, and old age.
What is a floodplain?
Describe three ways in which a river erodes its channel.
Granite is the most common rock found on continents. What are the end products after granite has been completely weathered?What happens to these weathering products?
Describe how the location of an earthquake is identified by a seismic recording station.
Where would the theory of plate tectonics predict that earthquakes would occur?
What is an earthquake? What produces an earthquake?
How would plate tectonics explain the occurrence of normal faulting? Reverse faulting?
Describe the conditions that would lead to faulting as opposed to folding of rock layers.
What does the presence of folded sedimentary rock layers mean about the geologic history of an area?
Describe the difference between a syncline and an anticline, using sketches as necessary.
Describe the responses of rock layers to increasing compressional stress when it (a) increases slowly on deeply buried, warm layers;(b) increases slowly on cold rock layers; and (c) is applied
What is the principle of uniformity? What are the underlying assumptions of this principle?
Discuss evidence that would explain why plate tectonics occurs on Earth but not on other planets.
If ice is a mineral, is a glacier a rock? Describe reasons to support or oppose calling a glacier a rock according to the definition of a rock.
The rock cycle describes how igneous, metamorphic, and sedimentary rocks are changed into each other. If this is true, analyze why most of the rocks on Earth’s surface are sedimentary.
Describe cycles that occur on Earth’s surface and cycles that occur between the surface and the interior. Explain why these cycles do not exist on other planets of the solar system.
Why are there no active volcanoes in the eastern United States or Canada? Explain why you would or would not expect volcanoes there in the future.
What are the significant similarities and differences between igneous, sedimentary, and metamorphic rocks?
Is ice a mineral? Describe reasons to argue that ice is a mineral.Describe reasons to argue that ice is not a mineral.
Explain how the crust of Earth is involved in a dynamic, ongoing recycling process.
The northwestern coast of the United States has a string of volcanoes running along it. According to plate tectonics, what does this mean about this part of the North American Plate?What geologic
Describe the probable source of all the earthquakes that occur in southern California.
What is an oceanic trench? What is its relationship to major plate boundaries? Explain this relationship.
Briefly describe the theory of plate tectonics and how it accounts for the existence of certain geologic features.
Describe the three major types of plate boundaries and what happens at each.
Explain why very old rocks are not found on the seafloor.
Describe the origin of the magnetic strip patterns found in the rocks along an oceanic ridge.
What is the asthenosphere? Why is it important in modern understandings of Earth?
What evidence provides information about the nature of Earth’s core?
What are metamorphic rocks? What limits the maximum temperatures possible in metamorphism? Explain.
Briefly describe the rock-forming process that changes sediments into solid rock.
Is the igneous rock basalt always fine-grained? Explain.
What are the basic differences between basalt and granite, the two most common igneous rocks of Earth’s crust? In what part of Earth’s crust are basalt and granite most common? Explain.
What is meant by the “texture” of an igneous rock? What does the texture of igneous rock tell you about its cooling history?
What is the difference between magma and lava?
Which major kind of rock, based on the way it is formed, would you expect to find most of in Earth’s crust? Explain.
Briefly explain the basic differences among the three major kinds of rocks based on the way they were formed.
Describe the concept of the rock cycle.
What is a rock?
Analyze why the time between two consecutive tides is twelve hours and twenty-five minutes rather than twelve hours. Explore many different explanations that you imagine, then select the best and
Explain why sundial time is often different than the time as shown by a clock.
Explain why an eclipse of the Sun does not occur at each new moon phase when the Moon is between Earth and the Sun.
On what date is Earth the closest to the Sun? What season is occurring in the Northern Hemisphere at this time? Explain this apparent contradiction.
What are the significant similarities and differences between a solstice and an equinox?
Explain why there are two tidal bulges on opposite sides of Earth.
Identify the moon phases that occur with (a) a spring tide and(b) a neap tide.
Does an eclipse of the Sun occur during any particular moon phase? Explain.
Why doesn’t an eclipse of the Sun occur at each new moon when the Moon is between Earth and the Sun?
What phase is the Moon in if it rises at sunset? Explain your reasoning.
What made all the craters that can be observed on the Moon?When did this happen?
If you were on the Moon as people on Earth observed a full moon, in what phase would you observe Earth?
Using sketches, briefly describe the positions of Earth, Moon, and Sun during each of the major moon phases.
Explain why a lunar eclipse is not observed once a month.
When it is 12 noon in Texas, what time is it (a) in Jacksonville, Florida; (b) in Bakersfield, California; (c) at the North Pole?
Explain why standard time zones were established. In terms of longitude, how wide is a standard time zone? Why was this width chosen?
What is the meaning of (a) noon, (b) a.m. and (c) p.m.?
The tropic of Cancer, tropic of Capricorn, Arctic Circle, and Antarctic Circle are parallels that are identified with specific names. What parallels do the names represent? What is the significance
Use a map or a globe to identify the latitude and longitude of your present location.
Briefly describe how Earth’s axis is used as a reference for a system that identifies locations on Earth’s surface.
What is the meaning of equinox? What causes equinoxes? On about what dates do equinoxes occur?
What is the meaning of the word solstice? What causes solstices? On about what dates do solstices occur?
Where on Earth are you if you observe the following at the instant of apparent local noon on September 23? (a) The shadow from a vertical stick points northward. (b) There is no shadow on a clear
Use sketches with brief explanations to describe how the constant inclination and constant orientation of Earth’s axis produce (a) a variation in the number of daylight hours and(b) a variation in
Describe and analyze why it would be important to study the nucleus of a comet.
Provide arguments that Pluto should be considered a planet.Counter this with arguments that it should not be classified as a planet.
Describe the possibility and probability of life on each of the other planets.
Evaluate the statement that Venus is Earth’s sister planet.
Draw a sketch showing the positions of the Earth, Sun, and Venus when it appears as the morning star. Draw a second sketch showing the positions when Venus appears as the evening star.
What are the significant similarities and differences between the terrestrial and giant planets? Speculate why these similarities and differences exist.
If a comet is an icy, dusty body, explain why it appears bright in the night sky.
Technically speaking, what is wrong with calling a rock that strikes the surface of the Moon a meteorite? Again speaking technically, what should you call a rock that strikes the surface of the Moon
What is a meteorite? What is the most likely source of meteorites?
What is a meteor? What is the most likely source of meteors?
Where do comets come from? Why are astronomers so interested in studying the physical and chemical structure of a comet?
What is an asteroid? What evidence indicates that asteroids are parts of a broken-up planet? What evidence indicates that asteroids are not parts of a broken-up planet?
What are “shooting stars”? Where do they come from? Where do they go?
Using the properties of the planets other than Earth, discuss the possibilities of life on Mars.
What evidence exists today that the number of rocks and rock particles floating around in the solar system was much greater in the past soon after the planets formed?
What is so unusual about the motions and orbits of Venus and Uranus?
Give one idea about why the Great Red Spot exists on Jupiter.Does the existence of a similar spot on Saturn support or not support this idea? Explain.
What are the similarities and the differences between the Sun and Jupiter?
Describe some of the unusual features found on the moons of Jupiter.
What are the rings of Saturn?

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