Science Fact Finder

Characteristics

1. What is the mass of the Earth? [answer]
2. How much of the Earth's surface is land and how much is water? [answer]
3. What are the highest and lowest points on Earth? [answer]
4. What are the highest and lowest elevations in the United States? [answer]
5. Which elements are contained in the Earth's crust? [answer]
6. How does the temperature of the Earth change as one goes deeper underground? [answer]
7. What is the interior of the Earth like? [answer]
8. What are the major eras, periods, and epochs in geologic time? [answer]

Land

1. Where are the northernmost and southernmost points of land? [answer]
2. Do the continents move? [answer]
3. What and where is the Continental Divide of North America? [answer]
4. Are there tides in the solid part of the Earth as well as in its waters? [answer]
5. How does a stalactite differ from a stalagmite? [answer]
6. How is "speleothem" defined? [answer]
7. What is the difference between spelunking and speleology? [answer]
8. What causes sinkholes? [answer]
9. Where are the world's largest deserts? [answer]
10. How tall is a sand dune? [answer]
11. Which natural attractions in the United States are the most popular? [answer]
12. How long is the Grand Canyon? [answer]
13. From what type of stone was Mount Rushmore National Monument carved? [answer]
14. What are the LaBrea tar pits? [answer]
15. What is the composition of the Rock of Gibraltar? [answer]

Water

1. What is the chemical composition of the ocean? [answer]
2. What causes waves in the ocean? [answer]
3. Where are the world's highest tides? [answer]
4. How deep is the ocean? [answer]
5. What fraction of an iceberg shows above water? [answer]
6. Why is the sea blue? [answer]
7. How salty is seawater? [answer]
8. What is the difference between an ocean and a sea? [answer]
9. Where is the world's deepest Bake? [answer]
10. Where are the five largest lakes in the world located? [answer]
11. What are the longest rivers in the world? [answer]
12. Who invented the ancient Chinese Earthquake detector? [answer]
13. When did the most severe earthquake in American history occur? [answer]
14. Of what magnitude on the Richter scale was the earthquake that hit San Francisco on April 18, 1906? [answer]
15. How many kinds of volcanoes are there? [answer]
16. Where is the "Circle of Fire"? [answer]
17. Which volcanoes have been the most destructive? [answer]
18. When did Mount St. Helens erupt? [answer]

Ice And Ice Ages

1. How much of the Earth's surface is covered with ice? [answer]
2. What is a moraine? [answer]
3. How much of the Earth's surface is permanently frozen? [answer]
4. How thick is the ice that covers Antarctica? [answer]
5. Who was the first person on Antarctica? [answer]
6. When was the Ice Age? [answer]
7. If all the ice in the world were melted, how much would the oceans rise? [answer]

Mapping The Earth

1. Who is regarded as the founder of U.S. geology? [answer]
2. What is the prime meridian? [answer]
3. What is Mercator's projection for maps? [answer]
4. Which direction does a compass needle point at the north magnetic pole? [answer]
5. What is Foucault's pendulum? [answer]
6. Who was the first person to map the Gulf Stream? [answer]