DAY – 6 (InstaTest-6): Insta 75 Days Revision Plan-2022: Topic – Geography, Subject-wise Test 5, Textbook-wise Test 5 and June 2021 CA

Solution : a 

Justification: Constant eruptions at the crest of oceanic ridges cause the rupture of the oceanic crust and the new lava wedges into it, pushing the oceanic crust on either side. The ocean floor, thus spreads, known as sea floor spreading.

Sea floor spreading is verified using these phenomena:

• It was realised that all along the mid-oceanic ridges, volcanic eruptions are common and they bring huge amounts of lava to the surface in this area. The sediments on the ocean floor are unexpectedly very thin.
• The age of the rocks increases as one moves away from the crest.
• The ocean crust rocks are much younger than the continental rocks.
• The sediments on the ocean floor are unexpectedly very thin.
• The deep trenches have deep-seated earthquake occurrences while in the mid-oceanic ridge areas, the quake foci have shallow depths. It means lava is in close vicinity.

Q Source: Page 33: Fundamentals of Physical Geography: 11th NCERT

Solution : a 

Justification: Statement 1:  Ukraine is currently in territorial dispute with Russia over the Crimean Peninsula which Russia invaded and annexed in 2014, and then the recent Russian invasion in 2022. 

It is bordered by Russia to the east and northeast, Belarus to the northwest, Poland and Slovakia to the west, Hungary, Romania, and Moldova to the southwest, and the Black Sea and Sea of Azov to the south and southeast, respectively. 

Statement 2: It is a narrow strait that connects the Atlantic Ocean to the Mediterranean Sea and separates Gibraltar and Peninsular Spain in Europe from Morocco and Ceuta (Spain) in Africa.

It is far away from Ukraine.

Q Source: Map-based questions: Europe

Solution : c 

Justification: Statement 1: Near the equator the ocean water is about 8 cm higher in level than in the middle latitudes. This causes a very slight gradient and water tends to flow down the slope. So, 1 is correct. 

Statement 2: Solar energy makes current warm or cold and decides their circulatory patterns. So, 2 is correct. 

Learning: Surface currents are generated largely by wind. Their patterns are determined by wind direction, Coriolis forces from the Earth’s rotation, and the position of landforms that interact with the currents. 

Currents may also be generated by density differences in water masses caused by temperature and salinity variations.  These currents move water masses through the deep ocean—taking nutrients, oxygen, and heat with them.  

Occasional events also trigger serious currents. Huge storms move water masses. Underwater earthquakes may trigger devastating tsunamis.

Q Source: Page 123: Fundamentals of Physical Geography: 11th NCERT

Solution : c

Justification: Statement 1:  An interglacial period (or alternatively interglacial) is a geological interval of warmer global average temperature lasting thousands of years that separates consecutive glacial periods within an ice age. 

Evidence of multiple advances and retreats of glaciers, and the sediment deposits in glacial lakes reveal the occurrence of warm and cold periods in the history of earth. It is a strong evidence of climate change.

Statement 2:  Tree rings also show evidence for wet and dry periods. Also, for e.g. near Rajasthan, 3000-1700 BC was a period of higher rainfall, with 2000-1700 BC supporting Harappan civilization. Dry conditions accentuated since then.

Q Source: Page 107: Fundamentals of Physical Geography: 11th NCERT

Solution : d 

Justification: Statement 1:  The Himalayan Mountains and the Alps are young fold mountains with rugged relief and high conical peaks. The Appalachians in North America and the Ural mountains in Russia have rounded features and low elevation. They are very old fold mountains. Therefore, statement 1 does not have general validity. 

Statement 2:  Block Mountains are created when large areas are broken and displaced vertically. The uplifted blocks are termed as horsts and the lowered blocks are called graben. The Rhine valley and the Vosges mountain in Europe are examples of such mountain systems. So, 2 is incorrect. 

Statement 3:  It is not necessary. The Aravali range in India is one of the oldest fold mountain systems in the world yet not associated with volcanic activity. 

Q Source: Basics: Geography

Solution : d

Types of Seismic Waves

There are several different kinds of seismic waves, and they all move in different ways. The two main types of waves are body waves and surface waves. Body waves can travel through the earth’s inner layers, but surface waves can only move along the surface of the planet like ripples on water. Earthquakes radiate seismic energy as both body and surface waves.

Body Waves

Traveling through the interior of the earth, body waves arrive before the surface waves emitted by an earthquake. These waves are of a higher frequency than surface waves.

Surface Waves

Travelling only through the crust, surface waves are of a lower frequency than body waves, and are easily distinguished on a seismogram as a result. Though they arrive after body waves, it is surface waves that are almost enitrely responsible for the damage and destruction associated with earthquakes. This damage and the strength of the surface waves are reduced in deeper earthquakes. 

Love Waves

The first kind of surface wave is called a Love wave, named after A.E.H. Love, a British mathematician who worked out the mathematical model for this kind of wave in 1911. It’s the fastest surface wave and moves the ground from side-to-side. Confined to the surface of the crust, Love waves produce entirely horizontal motion.

Rayleigh Waves

The other kind of surface wave is the Rayleigh wave, named for John William Strutt, Lord Rayleigh, who mathematically predicted the existence of this kind of wave in 1885. A Rayleigh wave rolls along the ground just like a wave rolls across a lake or an ocean. Because it rolls, it moves the ground up and down, and side-to-side in the same direction that the wave is moving. Most of the shaking felt from an earthquake is due to the Rayleigh wave, which can be much larger than the other waves.

Solution : a

Endogenic Forces

• Endogenic forces are those internal forces which derive their strength from the earth’s interior and play a crucial role in shaping the earth crust.

• Examples – mountain building forces, continent building forces, earthquakes, volcanism etc.
• The endogenic forces are mainly land building forces. The energy emanating from within the earth is the main force behind endogenic geomorphic processes. This energy is mostly generated by radioactivity, rotational and tidal friction and primordial heat from the origin of the earth.

Exogenic Forces

• Exogenic forces are those forces which derive their strength from the earth’s exterior or are originated within the earth’s atmosphere.
• Examples of forces – the wind, waves, water etc.
• Examples of exogenic processes – weathering, mass movement, erosion, deposition.
• Exogenic forces are mainly land wearing forces.

Solution : b

Erosional landforms due to Glaciers

1. Cirque or Corris

• They are deep, long and wide troughs or basins with very steep concave to vertically dropping high walls at its head as well as sides.
• They are simply a bowl-shaped depression formed due to the erosional activity of glaciers.

2. Hanging Valleys or U-shaped Valleys, Fjords/fiords

• The Glacier doesn’t create a new valley like a river does but deepens and widens a pre-existing valley by smoothening away the irregularities.
• These valleys, which are formed by the glacial erosions assume the shape of letter ‘U’ and hence are called as U-shaped Valleys or Hanging Valleys.
• A fjord is a very deep glacial trough filled with sea water and making up shorelines.

3. Horns and Aretes

• • Horns are sharp pointed and steep-sided peaks.
  • They are formed by headward erosion of cirque wall.

• When the divide between two cirque walls gets narrow because of progressive erosions, it results in the formation of a saw-toothed ridge called Arete. Depositional Landforms due to Glaciers

1. Moraines

• Moraines are long ridges of deposits of glacial till.

2. Eskers

• When glaciers melt in summer, the water which formed as a result of melting accumulates beneath the glacier and flows like streams in channels beneath that ice.
• Very coarse material like boulders, blocks and some minor fractions of rock debris are carried away by these streams.
• They later get deposited in the valleys itself and once the ice melts completely, they are visible to the surface as sinuous ridges.
• These ridges are called as Eskers.

3. Drumlins

• They are smooth oval-shaped ridge-like structures composed mainly of glacial till.

Solution : b

Block Mountains

• Block mountains are created because of faulting on a large scale (when large areas or blocks of earth are broken and displaced vertically or horizontally).
• The uplifted blocks are termed as horsts, and the lowered blocks are called graben.
• The Great African Rift Valley (valley floor is graben), The Rhine Valley (graben) and the Vosges mountain (horst) in Europe are examples.
• Block mountains are also called fault-block mountains since they are formed due to faulting as a result of tensile and compressive forces.

fold mountains 

• the Himalayas, 
• the Rockies, 
• the Andes.

block mountains 

• Vosges mountains in France, 
• the Black Forest in Germany, 
• Vindhya and Satpura in India 

volcanic mountains 

• Cascade Range in the USA, 
• Mount Kenya, 
• Mount Kilimanjaro, 

Mount Fujiyama.

Solution : b

Basic or Basaltic lava

• These are the hottest lavas, about 1,000 °C and are highly fluid.
• They are dark coloured basalt, rich in iron and magnesium but poor in silica.
• They flow out of volcanic vent quietly and are not very explosive.
• Due to their high fluidity, they flow readily with a speed of 10 to 30 miles per hour. Hence, statement 1 is incorrect.
• They affect extensive areas, spreading out as thin sheets over great distances before they solidify.
• The resultant volcano is gently sloping with a wide diameter and forms a flattened shield or dome.
• Shield type lava flow is common along the constructive boundaries (divergent boundary).

Solution : c

Paleomagnetism is the study of the record of the earth’s magnetic field with the help of magnetic fields recorded in rocks, sediment, or archaeological materials.

The polarity of the Earth’s magnetic field and magnetic field reversals are thus detectable by studying the rocks of different ages.

Rocks formed from underwater volcanic activity are mainly basaltic (low silica, iron-rich) which makes up most of the ocean floor.

Basalt contains magnetic minerals, and as the rock is solidifying, these minerals align themselves in the direction of the magnetic field. This locks in a record of which way the magnetic field was positioned at the time.

Paleomagnetic studies of rocks have demonstrated that the orientation of the earth’s magnetic field has frequently alternated (geomagnetic reversal) over geologic time. Paleomagnetism led the revival of the continental drift hypothesis and its transformation into theories of Sea Floor Spreading and Plate Tectonics.

Rising magma assumes the polarity of Earth’s geomagnetic field at the time before it solidifies on the oceanic crust.

• As the conventional currents pull the oceanic plates apart, the solidified band of rock moves away from the vent (or ridge), and a new band of rock takes its place a few million years later when the magnetic field was reversed. This results in this magnetic striping where the adjacent rock bands have opposite polarities.
• This process repeats over and over giving rise to a series of narrow parallel rock bands on either side of the ridge and alternating pattern of magnetic striping on the seafloor.

Solution : c

Land and Sea Breezes

The land and sea absorb and transfer heat differently. 

During the day the land heats up faster and becomes warmer than the sea. Therefore, over the land the air rises giving rise to a low-pressure area, whereas the sea is relatively cool and the pressure over sea is relatively high. Thus, pressure gradient from sea to land is created and the wind blows from the sea to the land as the sea breeze. 

In the night the reversal of condition takes place. The land loses heat faster and is cooler than the sea. The pressure gradient is from the land to the sea and hence land breeze results.

Solution : d

Tropical Cyclones:

Tropical cyclones are violent storms that originate over oceans in tropical areas and move over to the coastal areas bringing about large-scale destruction caused by violent winds, very heavy rainfall and storm surges. This is one of the most devastating natural calamities. They are known as Cyclones in the Indian Ocean, Hurricanes in the Atlantic, Typhoons in the Western Pacific and South China Sea, and Willy-willies in the Western Australia.

Tropical cyclones originate and intensify over warm tropical oceans. The conditions favourable for the formation and intensification of tropical storms are:

 (i) Large sea surface with temperature higher than 27° C;

 (ii) Presence of the Coriolis force; 

 (iii) Small variations in the vertical wind speed;

 (iv) A pre-existing weak low- pressure area or low-level-cyclonic circulation;

 (v) Upper divergence above the sea level system.

The energy that intensifies the storm, comes from the condensation process in the towering cumulonimbus clouds, surrounding the centre of the storm. With continuous supply of moisture from the sea, the storm is further strengthened. On reaching the land the moisture supply is cut off and the storm dissipates. The place where a tropical cyclone crosses the coast is called the landfall of the cyclone. The cyclones, which cross 20o N latitude generally, recurve and they are more destructive.

Solution : d

Ocean currents

Ocean currents are like river flow in oceans. They represent a regular volume of water in a definite path and direction. Ocean currents are influenced by two types of forces namely:

(i) primary forces that initiate the movement of water;

(ii) secondary forces that influence the currents to flow.

The primary forces that influence the currents are:

(i) heating by solar energy;

(ii) wind;  

(iii) gravity;

(iv) coriolis force. 

Heating by solar energy causes the water to expand. That is why, near the equator the ocean water is about 8 cm higher in level than in the middle latitudes. This causes a very slight gradient and water tends to flow down the slope. Wind blowing on the surface of the ocean pushes the water to move. Friction between the wind and the water surface affects the movement of the water body in its course. Gravity tends to pull the water down the pile and create gradient variation. The Coriolis force intervenes and causes the water to move to the right in the northern hemisphere and to the left in the southern hemisphere. These large accumulations of water and the flow around them are called Gyres. These produce large circular currents in all the ocean basins.

Characteristics of Ocean Currents 

Currents are referred to by their “drift”. Usually, the currents are strongest near the surface and may attain speeds over five knots. At depths, currents are generally slow with speeds less than 0.5 knots.

Solution : b

Geyser

• Steam or water at high pressure, along its path, gets accumulated in small reservoirs, fissures and fractures. Once the pressure exceeds the threshold limit, the steam bursts out to the surface disrupting the water at the mouth. Hence the name geyser.
• Silicate deposits at mouth give them their distinct colours.

• Generally, geysers are located near active volcanic areas. Iceland is famous for its geysers. 

Hot water spring

• Steam or water at high pressure smoothly flows to the top through the vent and condense at the surface giving rise to a spring. Hence, statement 1 is incorrect.

• Some springs are very colourful because of the presence of cyanobacteria of different colours.
• Found all across the world

Solution : d

Solution:  Mars Odyssey is a robotic spacecraft orbiting the planet Mars. The project was developed by NASA, and contracted out to Lockheed Martin, with an expected cost for the entire mission of US$297 million. Its mission is to use spectrometers and a thermal imager to detect evidence of past or present water and ice, as well as study the planet’s geology and radiation environment.

Solution : d

Solution: 

The Supreme Court (SC) has held that the case against two Italian marines will be closed only after the Republic of Italy deposits with it Rs. 10 crore as compensation to victims. 

The Permanent Court of Arbitration is an intergovernmental organization dedicated to serve the international community in the field of dispute resolution and to facilitate arbitration and other forms of dispute resolution between States. In real terms it is not a court, it is an organizer of arbitral tribunals to resolve conflicts between member states, international organizations, or private parties. All decisions delivered by it are called “awards”.

Awards are binding on all the parties in the dispute and have to be carried out without delay. The parties cannot appeal against them.

Established in 1899 to facilitate arbitration and other forms of dispute resolution between states.

Solution : a

Solution: 

The Raisina Dialogue is India’s premier conference on geopolitics and geoeconomics committed to addressing the most challenging issues facing the global community. Every year, leaders in politics, business, media, and civil society converge in New Delhi to discuss the state of the world and explore opportunities for cooperation on a wide range of contemporary matters. The Dialogue is structured as a multi-stakeholder, cross-sectoral discussion, involving heads of state, cabinet ministers and local government officials, who are joined by thought leaders from the private sector, media and academia.

The conference is hosted by the Observer Research Foundation in partnership with the Ministry of External Affairs, Government of India. This effort is supported by a number of institutions, organizations and individuals, who are committed to the mission of the conference.

Solution : b 

Solution: Snow Leopards can be found in the cold high mountains of 12 countries including China, Bhutan, Nepal, India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Russia & Mongolia. Statement 2 is correct. They are protected under the Schedule I of the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972 and have been classified as Vulnerable in the IUCN Red list.

Solution : d

Solution:

Python-5 is an Air-to-Air Missile (AAM) which has been added to Tejas to increase its air-to-air weapons capability. Tejas is India’s indigenous Light Combat Aircraft. It is manufactured by Rafael Advanced Defense Systems (Israel)

Solution : a

There are total 13 sectors and incentives differ for every sector

Solution : a

he Centre (39%) and States (40%) are expected to have almost equal share in implementing the NIP in India, followed by the private sector (21%)

Solution :  b

The sanctuary, which hosts two-thirds of the world’s great one-horned

rhinoceroses, is a World Heritage Site.

it is home to the highest density of tigers among protected areas in the world

and was declared a Tiger Reserve in 2006 (now the highest tiger density is in

Orang National Park, Assam).

It is recognized as an Important Bird Area by BirdLife International.

Solution : d

About Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana:

It is in line with the One Nation – One Scheme theme- It replaced National Agricultural Insurance Scheme (NAIS) and Modified National Agricultural Insurance Scheme (MNAIS).

Launched in 2016.

Coverage: All food & oilseed crops and annual commercial/horticultural crops for which past yield data is available.

Premium: The prescribed premium is 2% to be paid by farmers for all Kharif crops and 1.5% for all rabi crops. In the case of annual commercial and horticultural crops, the premium is 5%.

Solution : a

Statement 2 is interchanged

The Geological Survey of India (GSI) is a scientific agency of India. It was founded in 1851, is a Government of India organization under the Ministry of Mines, one of the oldest of such organisations in the world and the second oldest survey in India after Survey of India (founded in 1767), for conducting geological surveys and studies of India, and also as the prime provider of basic earth science information to government, industry and general public, as well as the official participant in steel, coal, metals, cement, power industries and international geoscientific forums

The five missions of GSI are listed below.

Mineral resource Assessments

Baseline Surveys

Geoinformatics

Training and Capacity Building

Multi-disciplinary Geosciences

Survey of India is the oldest scientific department of the Indian government. It was established in 1767 to help consolidate the Indian territories of the British East India Company .

It is India’s principal mapping agency and functions under the Department of Science and Technology (DST), Ministry of Science and Technology, Government of India.

Its chief responsibility is to ensure that India’s domain is explored and mapped appropriately.

Solution :  d 

Given HCF of two natural numbers m and n = 24

and their product, m × n = 552

LCM of two natural numbers = Product of m and n / HCF of m and n = 552/24 = 23

Here, no set of m and n is possible satisfying the given conditions.

Solution :  a  

Let f(x) = 2x3 + x2 – x – 2 = (x – 1)(2x2 + 3x + 2)

and g(x)= 3x3 – 2x2 + x – 2 = (x -1)(3x2 + x + 2)

Hence, the highest common factor of f(x) and g(x) is (x – 1).

Solution : b 

HCF of (22n + 7, 33n + 10) is always 1.

Illustration: For n = 1, HCF (29, 43) = 1

For n = 2, HCF (51, 76) = 1

For n= 3, HCF (73, 109) = 1

Solution : c 

Time after which they will hit the target again together

= LCM (5, 6, 7 and 8)

= 5 × 3 × 7 × 2 × 4

= 840 s

They will hit target together = 840/60 = 14 min.

So, they will hit together again at 9:14 am.

Solution : b

Passage is talking about both the prespectives of Virus ; good and bad. Hence option B seems to be most logical and rational inference. Option A is extreme as per the passage. C and D not related to the passage.