Plate Tectonics And Earthquakes Ch4 Test Bank Docx

Natural Disasters, 11e (Abbott)

Chapter 4 Plate Tectonics and Earthquakes

1) The slide-past motions of long transform faults occur in all but which of the following?

A) In the northeastern Pacific as the Queen Charlotte fault, located near a sparsely populated region of Canada

B) Along the San Andreas Fault in California with its famous earthquakes

C) At the southwestern edge of the Pacific Ocean where the Alpine fault cuts across the South Island of New Zealand

D) Where the Indian subcontinent touches Asia

2) The Pacific Plate subducts along ________ edges and creates enormous earthquakes, such as the 1923 Tokyo seism.

A) its southern and eastern

B) its northern and eastern

C) its southern and western

D) its northern and western

3) The greatest earthquakes in the world occur ________.

A) where plates collide with each other

B) where plates separate from one another

C) where plates slide past each other

D) in the interiors of individual plates

4) Shallow subduction zone earthquakes occur ________.

A) in the upper portion of the down-going plate

B) at the bend in the subducting plate

C) in the overriding plate

D) All of these are correct.

E) None of these are correct.

5) The Dead Sea and the Sea of Galilee ________.

A) are pull-apart basins over hot spots

B) are compressional basins and are the result of subduction

C) are compressional basins and the result of strike-slip motion

D) are pull-apart basins and the result of strike-slip motion

E) are pull-apart basins and the result of subduction

6) Three basic classes of collisions include all but which of the following?

A) Oceanic plate versus oceanic plate

B) Oceanic plate versus continent-bearing plate

C) Continental plate versus continental plate

D) Continental plate versus mantle plate

7) Which of the following is not a divergent margin?

A) East African Rift

B) Mid-Atlantic Ridge

C) Aleutian Island Arc

D) East Pacific Rise

E) Juan de Fuca Ridge

8) Which of the following does not have a significant convergent margin?

A) Kamchatka

B) Australian Plate

C) South American Andes

D) Caribbean Plate

E) African Plate

9) Most earthquakes are explainable using ________.

A) Maxwell's equations

B) the seismic-gap method

C) plate-tectonics theory

D) the law of superposition

E) the law of lateral seisms

10) ________ are the down-dropped areas in the middle of spreading-center domes that are being pulled apart.

A) Rift valleys

B) Horsts

C) Junctions

D) Gap holes

E)  Escape basins

11) A triple junction is the point where ________.

A) nine or more faults terminate

B) three seismic gaps exist along the same fault

C) latitude, longitude, and elevation data indicate where a hypocenter is located

D) three tectonic plates touch

E) an earthquake cluster is centered

12) Which of the following correctly states the order in which a continental area is transformed into an ocean basin as a spreading center forms?

A) Centering, doming, rifting, and finally spreading

B) Doming, centering, spreading, and finally rifting

C) Spreading, rifting, doming, and finally centering

D) Rifting, doming, spreading, and finally centering

13) The seismic-gap method of earthquake forecasting works by identifying ________.

A) segments along a fault that not moved for the longest amount of time

B) where along a fault the largest amount of horizontal displacement has occurred

C) where along a fault the largest amount of vertical displacement has occurred

D) triple junctions and predicting where rift valleys will form in pull-apart gaps

E) where hypocenters and epicenters are separated by the smallest vertical distance

14) Using the seismic gap method, scientists identify section "C" of a fault as a seismic gap. Which of the following possible answers correctly states what this means?

A) The next major earthquake will occur in section "C" of the fault.

B) The next major earthquake will likely occur in section "C" but it is not a guarantee.

C) Section "C" is the least-likely section along this fault to have the next major earthquake.

D) Section "C" will have the largest surface ruptures during the next earthquake along this fault.

E) The next earthquake in section "C" is predicted to be rather weak.

15) When a number of earthquakes along in the same general area over the course of a few months or years, the event is referred to as a(n) ________ .

A) earthquake cluster

B) seismic batch

C) faulting episode

D) gap buster

E) tectonic bundling

16) The ongoing collision between Asia and the subcontinent of India is resulting in ________.

A) the closure of a triple junction

B) the formation of a spreading center

C) great earthquakes over a gigantic area

D) subduction-related volcanism

E) deep-focus earthquakes along the transform fault system

17) Which of the following sections along the San Andreas fault remained as a seismic gap as of late 2015?

A) Loma Prieta

B) Parkfield

C) The Crystal Springs area south of San Francisco

D) The central "creeping" section

18) How does a locked zone in a fault typically catch up with a creeping section?

A) By transforming into a creeping section

B) By infrequent but large fault movements

C) By one large fault movement

D) By sliding rather than faulting

E) By ejecting magma into the fault plane

19) Liquefaction occurs when seismic waves cause ________.

A) water to be injected into sediment causing the grains to lose cohesion and behave like a fluid

B) waves to form and crash into low-lying areas nearby and across ocean basins

C) rocks to break apart and act more like fluids than solids

D) pipes in buildings to burst and weaken the foundations in the resulting flooding

20) The spreading-center segment at the southern end of California's Salton Sea is marked by all but which of the following? 

A) glassy volcanic domes

B) high heat flow

C) boiling mud pots

D) major geothermal energy reservoirs

E) a lack of small earthquakes because magma is too close to Earth's surface

21) Recent work has shown that the last major earthquake in the Cascadia subduction zone occurred about 9 p.m. on 26 January 1700 and was about magnitude 9. This is known by ________.

A) analysis of annual growth rings in trees of downed forests along the Oregon-Washington-British Columbia coast showing large rings after 1699

B) Tsunami of 2-m (7-ft) height that hit Japan from midnight to dawn pointing to a 9 p.m. earthquake along the Washington-Oregon coast on 8 December 1699

C) Jesuit missionaries in the Chile and Alaska areas recording a very large quake and accompanying tsunami in their daily logs

D) Tsunami gauge measurements at the Pacific Tsunami Center

E) analysis of annual growth rings in trees of downed forests along the Oregon-Washington-British Columbia coast showing no rings after 1699 and Tsunami of 2-m (7-ft) height that hit Japan from midnight to dawn pointing to a 9 p.m. earthquake along the Washington-Oregon coast on 26 January 1700.

22) In 1985, because of the Michoacan earthquake many buildings collapsed and killed about 8,000 people in Mexico City, even though the city lies 350 miles from the epicenter. All but which of the following caused this?

A) Resonance between seismic waves

B) Soft lake-sediment foundations

C) Improperly designed buildings

D) Collapse of thousands of single-story frame houses

23) In the 1989 Loma Prieta quake, the Marina District building collapses were extensive, and numerous destructive fires broke out, due to all but which one of the following?

A) Amplified shaking

B) Deformation and liquefaction of artificial-fill foundations

C) Soft first-story construction that led to building collapses

D) Widespread looting and arson

24) Constraining bends in large strike-slip faults commonly "lock up"; thus, movements there tend to be ________. 

A) infrequent and large

B) frequent and small

C) infrequent and small

D) tensional and mostly vertical

E) Infrequent and large and frequent and small are correct.

25) The best time for an earthquake to occur to minimize loss of life is ________.

A) during rush hour when people are in their cars and trucks

B) during the night when most people are home and asleep

C) in the middle of the day when people are in school or working

D) around noon when people in the kitchen or out to lunch

26) In San Francisco's Marina district in 1989, some fill underwent permanent deformation and settling, and some formed slurries as underground water and loose sediment flowed like a fluid in a process known as ________.

A) slumping

B) creep

C) liquefaction

D) plasticity

E) avulsion

27) The largest earthquakes along western North America are due to subduction beneath the continent. They include ________.

A) the magnitude 9.2 Alaska earthquake in 1964 which was due to subduction of the Pacific Plate

B) the magnitude 8.1 Mexico City event in 1985 which was caused by subduction of the Cocos Plate

C) the plates subducting beneath Oregon and Washington which generated a magnitude 9 earthquake on 26 January 1700

D) All of these choices are correct.

28) The ________ segment of the San Andreas fault is the only one not to have a long rupture in historic time. In prehistory, it has ruptured every 250 years on average, but the last big movement was in 1690. 

A) southern

B) middle

C) northern

D) "creeping"

29) On 9 January 1857, the San Andreas fault segment between Cholame and San Bernardino broke loose at its northwestern end, and the rupture propagated southeastward in the great ________ earthquake with a magnitude of about 7.9.

A) San Francisco

B) Loma Prieta

C) Owens Valley

D) Fort Tejon

E) Hebgen Lake

30) Spreading ridges produce the largest number of great earthquakes.

31) The compressional movements at subduction zones and continent-continent collisions generate the largest tectonic earthquakes and they affect the widest areas.

32) The North Anatolian fault in Turkey is a 1,400-km-long fault zone made of numerous subparallel faults that split and combine, bend and straighten, and there is reason to expect major earthquakes to occur progressively farther to the west, ever closer to Istanbul.

33) The Dead Sea fault zone is an Eastern Hemisphere analogue of the San Andreas Fault in California.

34) The primary cause of deaths in earthquakes in modern times is people being swallowed alive by the ground, rather than by building collapse.

35) The biggest disasters occur when great earthquakes occur at great depths.

36) The deadliest earthquake in history occurred in 1556 when about 830,000 Chinese were killed in and near Xi'an on the banks of the mighty Huang River.

37) Most of the subduction-zone earthquakes of today occur around the rim of the Pacific Ocean or the northeastern Indian Ocean.

38) Resonance can increase the duration buildings shake during an earthquake.

39) In the areas of most rapid subduction, the down-going slab may remain rigid enough to spawn large earthquakes to depths of 7,000 km.

40) At depths below 100 km, subduction zone earthquakes occur almost exclusively in the interior of the colder oceanic lithosphere, the heart of the subducting slab.

41) Earthquakes at subduction zones result from different types of fault movements, depending on whether they occur in shallow versus deeper realms.

42) The duration of strong ground shaking in the 1964 Alaskan Good Friday earthquake was 70 minutes. 

43) The 1985 Mexico City earthquake was caused by eastward subduction of a small plate, the Cocos Plate, beneath the North American Plate.

44) The biggest earthquake ever recorded instrumentally occurred on 22 May 1960 in southern Chile with a seismic moment magnitude of 9.5. 

45) The Cascadia subduction zone is 1,100 kilometers long, and its characteristics of youthful oceanic plate and strong coupling with the overriding plate are similar to situations in southwestern Japan and southern Chile where very large earthquakes have occurred.

46) Recent work has shown that the last major earthquake in the Cascadia subduction zone occurred about 9 PM on 26 January 1700 and was about magnitude 9.

47) Major southern California faults, such as the Imperial, San Jacinto system, Cerro Prieto, Elsinore, and Laguna Salada, also appear to be part of the San Andreas Plate boundary fault system carrying peninsular California to the northwest. 

48) The fires from the 1906 San Francisco earthquake did about ten times as much damage as the earthquake itself.

49) The San Francisco section of the San Andreas Fault has had an excessive number of earthquakes relative to other parts of the San Andreas Fault. 

50) The San Andreas Fault has different behaviors along its length. 

51) The creeping movements along some segments of the San Andreas Fault are shown by millimeters per year of offset of sidewalks, fences, buildings, and other features. 

52) Common reasons for building failure in the World Series quake included poor connections of houses to their foundations, buildings made of unreinforced masonry or brick-facade construction, and two- to five-story buildings deficient in shear-bearing internal walls and supports.

53) In the San Francisco Bay area, during the nineteenth century, earthquakes with magnitudes greater than 6 were much less common than in the 20th century. 

54) Most of the 131 fatalities from the Good Friday earthquake in Alaska in 1964 were due to fire caused by rupturing of gas lines. 

55) In 55 years, from 1962-2017, the more than 156,000 in Iran earthquakes mostly from a result of ________.

A) over population

B) liquification

C) poor construction

D) tsunamis

56) A series of 5 moderate earthquakes moved northward up to the Calaveras Fault preceded both the large quakes of 1865 and 1868.

57) Iceland is built on a mature spreading center that has been opening for the last 100 million years.

58) According to figure 4.40, the ________ has the greatest probability for one or more 6.7 magnitude earthquakes between 2003 and 2032.

A) Hayward Fault

B) San Andreas Fault

C) Calaveras Fault

D) San Gregorio Fault