Answer: c [Reason:] The famous Dal Lake and the Wular Lake are only 16 and 30 square kilometres in area respectively, whereas, the Caspian Sea, considered as the largest lake on the Earth, has an area 4,36,000 square kilometres.

Answer: c [Reason:] The lakes in which water is almost free from salts are called fresh water lakes. This becomes possible because of presence of a regular outlet from the lake.

Answer: d [Reason:] The Wular Lake of Kashmir is a fresh water; it receives river Jhelum at one end which drains out from the other end near Baramullah.

Answer: a [Reason:] Lake Superior is crescent shaped and is considered as the largest fresh-water lake, area wise (82,477 km2), whereas lake Baikul is considered as the deepest fresh-water lake with greatest volume (23,000 km2) of water in it.

Answer: d [Reason:] Water of such lakes is characterized with high content of salts. This becomes possible due to absence of an outlet and/or an excessive rate of evaporation, which leads to heavy concentration of salts in the lake water.

Answer: c [Reason:] The biggest lake, the Caspian Sea, is a lake belonging saline type. In other cases, the salinity of the lake is easily attributed to the dry climate, which causes precipitation of salts that form layers along the bottom and banks of the lakes.

Answer: a [Reason:] Lake Geneva is a fresh water lake, whereas the rest are saline lakes.

Answer: b [Reason:] Many basins are formed due to faulting, folding and other crustal movements. Such basins aptly called Tectonic basins. Depression of a central block in between two parallel faults, graben is an ideal site for a lake.

Answer: d [Reason:] Tectonic lake basins are commonly rectangular in outline and semi-permanent in nature.

Answer: b [Reason:] Craters of extinct volcanoes are excellent depressions to serve as lake basins. Volcano created basins are commonly circular in outline.

Answer: c [Reason:] The well-known Dal and Wular Lakes of Kashmir are believed to be detached and modified meander loops of the Jhelum. Similar lakes are also found in the delta of the Mississippi River.

Answer: c [Reason:] The doline type of lakes are simple circular depressions carved out of limestone by solution action. The Deep Lake of Florida is an example.

Answer: c [Reason:] The second layer, Mantle, lies beneath the crust and this zone starting from the lower boundary of the crust continues up to a depth of 2,900 km.

Answer: a [Reason:] The upper mantle is further divided into two layers of 400 and 600 km thickness respectively.

Answer: b [Reason:] It is said that the exact nature of the mantle is as yet incompletely understood.

Answer: b [Reason:] It is in solid state is not true and the remaining options are true and they are characteristics of the asthenosphere. In Greek, “asthenes” means without strength and hence the name.

Answer: d [Reason:] The existence of the core was suggested by R.D. Oldham in 1906 and subsequently confirmed by other seismologists.

Answer: a [Reason:] The mantle extends up to the depth of 2900 km and from that depth it is the core that is said to be present and the radius of the Earth is 6371 km and hence the core is said to extend till 6371 km.

Answer: b [Reason:] The inner core with a thickness of around 1790 km is believed to be a solid body.

Answer: c [Reason:] At the base of the mantle, density is inferred as 5.7 g/cc that jumps to 9.9 g/cc at the top of the core.

Answer: a [Reason:] The outer core behaves more like a liquid because the S-waves from the earthquake shocks reaching this zone are not transmitted through this zone at all.

Answer: a [Reason:] As regards the chemical composition of the inner core, the hypothesis that it is made up chiefly of iron and nickel elements has found support from many accounts.

Answer: c [Reason:] The value of density reaches 12.7 g/cc at the boundary of the inner core and becomes 13 g/cc at the centre of the Earth.

Answer: a [Reason:] The Asthenosphere is believed to be located entirely in the upper mantle and supports the slowly moving tectonic plates.

Answer: b [Reason:] The inner core, is believed to be in solid metallic state and is said have thickness of about 1790 km.

Answer: c [Reason:] The asthenosphere is believed to be the source of much volcanic activity and many other processes. It is is said be to located completely in the upper mantle.

Answer: a [Reason:] Tarnish nay be described as a phenomenon of change of original colours of mineral to some secondary colours at its surface due its oxidation at the surface.

Answer: c [Reason:] Lustre depends on: refractive index of the mineral, absorption capacity of the mineral and nature of reflecting surface.

Answer: b [Reason:] Lustre is entirely independent of colour of the mineral. A deeply coloured mineral may be lustreless and vice-versa.

Answer: b [Reason:] Metallic lustres are characteristics of high density, high refractive index and opaque minerals like galena, pyrite and chalcopyrite.

Answer: a [Reason:] Adamantine is the other name for shine of diamonds. Very brilliant; the best example is diamond.

Answer: b [Reason:] Streak is an important diagnostic property of many coloured minerals. Simply defined as the colour of the finely powdered mineral as obtained by scratching or rubbing the mineral over rough unglazed porcelain plate.

Answer: c [Reason:] Colourless and transparent minerals will always give a colourless streak that has no significance. The coloured and opaque minerals, especially of ore groups, give typically characteristic streaks quite different from other similarly looking minerals.

Answer: d [Reason:] Chromite and magnetite resemble closely in their other physical properties: both are almost black. These may be at once distinguished by their streaks: brown for chromite and black for magnetite.

Answer: c [Reason:] Hardness may be defined as the resistance, which a mineral offers to an external deformation action such as scratching, abrasion, rubbing or indentation. Hardness of a mineral depends on its chemical composition and atomic constitution.

Answer: b [Reason:] It was in 1822 that Austrian mineralogist F.Mohs proposed a relative, broadly quantitative “scale of hardness” of minerals assigning values between 1 and 10.

Answer: b [Reason:] It must be remembered that minerals of equal hardness scratch each other. The best example is that, diamond cuts diamonds.

Answer: c [Reason:] Metamorphism is the term used to express the process responsible for all the changes that take place in an original rock under the influence of changes in the surrounding conditions of temperature, pressure and chemically active fluids.

Answer: a [Reason:] The factors affecting the metamorphism of the rocks are temperature, pressure and chemically fluids. Wind conditions do not affect the metamorphism in any way.

Answer: b [Reason:] Metamorphic changes in the rocks are primarily the result of three main factors that are also sometimes called agents of metamorphism: heat, pressure and chemically active fluids.

Answer: d [Reason:] Rocks are made up of minerals that are normally stable at temperature below 200° C. However, when the temperature around these rocks changes due to one reason or the other, the mineral composition of the rocks undergoes some changes.

Answer: b [Reason:] Any given rock at some depth below the surface is subjected to pressure from two sources: first, load of the overlying burden and second, from crustal movements.

Answer: b [Reason:] The pressure from orogenic activity is generally lateral or horizontal and is commonly termed as directed pressure.

Answer: a [Reason:] The load of the overlying burden acts generally exerts pressure in a vertical direction and the process of change in the structure of the rock is often referred as load metamorphism.

Answer: a [Reason:] Presence or absence of chemically active fluids within the body of the rocks (the pore fluids) or around them plays very important role in the process of all types of metamorphism.

Answer: c [Reason:] Water in the form of steam is considered the single most important agent. The water may be present in the minerals as water of crystallization or simply as pore fluid or it may be supplied externally by magmatic bodies.

Answer: a [Reason:] Rocks situated near the plate boundaries or within the geosynclinal belts are especially prone to directed pressure and often show severest degree of metamorphic changes.

Answer: b [Reason:] It is believed that most metamorphic changes induced by the heat factor take place between 300°-850° C, some components of rock may actually start melting and hence rocks formed from their resolidification shall be included in the category of igneous rocks.

Answer: b [Reason:] Chromite is a strategic mineral finding applications in metallurgy of alloy steels, as a source of metal chromium and as a refractory material. It is used in chemical industry for manufacture of chromates.

Answer: a [Reason:] The bauxite in India occurs primarily as gibbsite Al2O3 , its percentage carrying between 40-60 percent and containing silica, iron oxides and titania as important accessory constituents.

Answer: c [Reason:] The best grade chromite in India occurs in Orissa. Other states where chromite reserves have been found are: Karnataka, Bihar, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh.

Answer: a [Reason:] Chromite deposits are mostly of igneous origin being associated with highly basic and ultrabasic rocks like periodotites and dunites.

Answer: a [Reason:] In India, copper is being mined from the states of Bihar, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh. Copper ores are also extracted in small volume in Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Sikkim.

Answer: d [Reason:] The Singhbhum copper belt of Bihar is made up of epidiorite and quartz-chloride-schist as country rock in which chalcopyrite is the main copper sulphide and quartz, chlorite, biotite and apatite are the gangue minerals. The belt extends for about 15 km.

Answer: a [Reason:] The Hutti Gold Mines are also located in Karnataka state in Raichur district where the gold lodes occur along fractures within chlorite schists and greenstones in a highly irregular manner.

Answer: c [Reason:] India is one of the chief producers of manganese ores in the world occupying 5th to 7th position and competing with Commonwealth of Independent States, South Africa and Brazil. There are three main ore minerals of manganese.

Answer: b [Reason:] The most common ore of lead is Galena-PbS. Similarly, the most common ore of zinc is also a sulphide, Sphalerite.

Answer: d [Reason:] India produces only small quantities of tungsten in Rajasthan. The source mineral is Wolfram which occurs in Rewat in Degana area.