Q 01/05

Which Scottish scientist, author of the 1788 Theory of the Earth, is called the father of modern geology?

A) James Hutton

B) Charles Lyell

C) Roderick Murchison

D) William Smith

Answer · why

A) James Hutton

James Hutton saw land endlessly worn down and rebuilt, so he concluded the rocks showed 'no vestige of a beginning, no prospect of an end'.

Q 02/05

What name did Alfred Wegener give the single landmass that he said later broke apart into today's continents?

A) Gondwana

B) Rodinia

C) Laurasia

D) Pangaea

Answer · why

D) Pangaea

Pangaea was Wegener's name for it, but he died on a Greenland expedition in 1930, decades before geologists accepted continental drift.

Q 03/05

During his lifetime, continental drift pioneer Alfred Wegener was best known for work in which science?

A) Meteorology

B) Zoology

C) Medicine

D) Chemistry

Answer · why

A) Meteorology

Meteorology took him to Greenland in 1906, where he flew kites and tethered balloons to measure the polar air.

Q 04/05

Clair Patterson dated the Earth at 4.55 billion years using lead from what?

A) A meteorite

B) A moon rock

C) Ancient granite

D) Volcanic ash

Answer · why

A) A meteorite

A meteorite had kept its original lead since the solar system formed, while Earth's own rocks have been mixed and recycled by plate tectonics.

Q 05/05

Earth's oldest known minerals, 4.4-billion-year-old zircons, come from the Jack Hills of which country?

A) Canada

B) Australia

C) South Africa

D) India

Answer · why

B) Australia

Australia protected part of the Jack Hills on its National Heritage List in 2020, safeguarding the site of Earth's oldest known crystals.