Geography Mixed Quiz: Set 2

The Sun is about 149.6 million kilometres from the Earth, a distance called one astronomical unit, and light travels about three lakh kilometres in a second.

Venus is wrapped in a very thick atmosphere of carbon dioxide, which lets sunlight in but does not let the heat escape.

The Tropic of Cancer crosses eight Indian states, and only two of them touch the sea. Running at about 23.5 degrees north, it passes from west to east through Gujarat, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, West Bengal, Tripura and Mizoram.

The Sun is overhead, with its rays vertical at noon, only at places between the Tropic of Cancer (23.5 degrees N) and the Tropic of Capricorn (23.5 degrees S).

Geology is the science of the solid Earth: the rocks it is made of, how it formed and changed over time, and the minerals, coal, oil and gas found inside it.

Quartzite is formed when sandstone, a sedimentary rock, is changed by great heat and pressure deep inside the earth.

Mount Kilimanjaro and Fujiyama were both built up by volcanic eruptions, while the Alps were formed by folding. Kilimanjaro in Tanzania is the highest mountain in Africa, and Fujiyama, or Mount Fuji, is the highest mountain in Japan.

All three statements are true. Statement 1: the size of an eruption is rated on the Volcanic Explosivity Index, a scale from 0 to 8 based on the volume of material thrown out and the height of the eruption column; each step up means roughly ten times more material.

The Coriolis force is the apparent force caused by the rotation of the Earth that deflects moving air and water to the right in the northern hemisphere and to the left in the southern hemisphere.

Precipitation is any form of water, liquid or solid, that falls from clouds to the ground. When the temperature is above freezing it falls as rain or drizzle; below freezing, water vapour turns directly into ice crystals that fall as snow.

Western disturbances are low-pressure systems that originate over the Mediterranean Sea and travel eastward with the subtropical westerly jet stream in winter, bringing light rain to Punjab, Haryana, western Uttar Pradesh and Delhi, and snow to the Himalaya, between December and February.

The Arabian Sea branch of the southwest monsoon strikes the Western Ghats first and drops most of its moisture on the windward western slopes, so the land on the eastern, leeward side gets little rain.

The Lushai Hills are the old British name for the hills of present-day Mizoram, home of the Mizo (Lushai) people.

The Sargasso Sea lies in the middle of the North Atlantic and is the only sea in the world with no coastline.

When rivers leave the Himalayas and reach the plains, their speed drops suddenly and they drop the heaviest load first, pebbles and boulders, in the Bhabar belt.

Indira Point on Great Nicobar Island in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands is the southernmost point of Indian territory, at about 6 degrees 45 minutes north latitude.

The Malwa plateau lies in western Madhya Pradesh and south-eastern Rajasthan, between the Vindhyas in the south and the Aravallis in the north-west, and is made of Deccan lava with black soil.

The Ganga basin is the most populous river basin on earth, home to more than 600 million people across India, Nepal, Bangladesh and a small part of Tibet.

Tsomgo Lake, also called Changu Lake, lies in East Sikkim, about 40 km from Gangtok on the road to Nathu La.

Altitude and slope, which together make up relief, decide how much soil collects at a place, not how fast humus forms.