Soils and Weathering

Steven Dutch, Natural and Applied Sciences,University of Wisconsin - Green Bay
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1. A transported soil would form from:
   1. a lava flow
   2. a sedimentary rock
   3. fractured granite
   4. flood-plain deposits
2. How can rain forests be so lush if the soil is so poor?
   1. They get nutrients from rain water
   2. The organisms have evolved to do without soil nutrients
   3. Human slash-and-burn agriculture returns nutrients to the soil
   4. The ecosystem is very effective at recycling nutrients
3. Which factors enter into soil classification?
   1. age of the soil
   2. parent material
   3. structure of the soil
   4. climate and drainage
   5. all the above
4. Why small particles weather faster than large ones:
   1. They have more surface area for chemical reactions
   2. They can be more easily eaten by soil organisms
   3. They are easier to break mechanically
   4. They are made of more soluble minerals
5. The world's best agricultural soils are:
   1. alfisols
   2. oxisols
   3. spodosols
   4. mollisols
6. Which breaks rocks down by prying the grains apart?
   1. freeze-thaw cycles
   2. growth of plant roots
   3. salt crystal growth along shorelines
   4. hydration of minerals
   5. all the preceding
7. A deposit of calcite or gypsum that forms in the subsurface of arid soils:
   1. pedalfer
   2. laterite
   3. caliche
   4. mollisol
8. The B horizon of a soil is the zone of:
   1. leaching
   2. accumulation
   3. unweathered parent material
   4. organic matter accumulation
9. Rocks weather fastest when:
   1. cold and dry
   2. always wet
   3. hot and dry
   4. damp
10. The chief ore of aluminum is:
    1. caliche
    2. gossan
    3. pedalfer
    4. bauxite
    5. subsoil
11. The layers or horizons in a soil profile result mostly from
    1. successive deposition of layers
    2. pressure of the overlying soil
    3. decreasing sunlight with depth
    4. differences in leaching and deposition with depth
12. Most likely to weather rapidly
    1. basalt fragments 10 cm across
    2. basalt fragments 1 cm across
    3. basalt fragments 1 mm across
13. Elements are leached from soil in the following order
    1. potassium, calcium, iron
    2. silicon, iron, calcium
    3. aluminum, silicon, potassium
    4. iron, potassium, calcium
14. An element whose major ore is a type of soil
    1. iron
    2. zinc
    3. aluminum
    4. uranium

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Created 29 Dec 1996; Last Update 24 February 2011

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