Question: What is the collective name for rain hail, snow, and sleet?
Answer: Precipitation

Question: What is the hardest natural substance known?
Answer: Diamond

Question: What is the collective noun for crows?
Answer: Murder

Question: What are the three main greenhouse gases?
Answer: Carbon dioxide; methane; chlorofluorocarbons

Question: 25% of which traditional British feature was cut down between 1945 and 1985 because of agricultural mechanization?
Answer: Hedges / hedgrerows

Question: What is the maximum speed of a garden snail: 0.03 mph, 0.3 mph, or 3 mph?
Answer: 0.03 mph

Question: Someone who studies tectonics is probably an expert in which field?
Answer: Movement of continental plates

Question: What common mineral is formed by the fossilization of vegetation?
Answer: Coal

Question: Which theory compares the Earth to a living organism?
Answer: Gala hypothesis

Question: In which part of the atmosphere is the ozone layer?
Answer: Stratosphere

Question: Where are you likely to come across a laccolith?
Answer: In igneous rock

Question: Which Indian state is at the eastern end of the Himalayas?
Answer: Assam

Question: What is the name of the atmospheric gas which screens out the sun's harmful ultraviolet radiation?
Answer: Ozone

Question: What is the world's deepest ocean?
Answer: Pacific

Question: Which is the largest animal ever to have inhabited the Earth?
Answer: Blue Whale

Question: What once covered 14% of the Earth's land area, but by 1991 over half had been destroyed?
Answer: Rainforest

Question: Which inland sea between Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan is fast disappearing because the rivers that feed it have been diverted and dammed?
Answer: Aral Sea

Question: The damaged Chernobyl nuclear power station is situated in which country?
Answer: Ukraine

Question: What type of rock is granite?
Answer: Igneous

Question: What is the main constituent of natural gas?
Answer: Methane

Question: Which of the Earth's atmospheric layers reflects radio waves?
Answer: Ionosphere

Question: Which gas forms 80% of Earth's atmosphere?
Answer: Nitrogen

Question: In which mountain chain would you find Mount Everest?
Answer: Himalayas

Question: What is the collective term for substances such as coal, oil and natural gas, the burning of which produces carbon dioxide?
Answer: Fossil fuel

Question: What contributes to the greenhouse effect at lower atmospheric levels, but in the upper atmosphere protects life on Earth?
Answer: Ozone

Question: What is the name of the process by which substances are washed out of the soil?
Answer: Leaching

Question: Who was director of the environmental pressure group Friends of the Earth 1984 - 90?
Answer: Jonathon Porritt

Question: Which European country is committed to decommissioning all of its nuclear reactors?
Answer: Sweden

Question: Which Canadian city gave its name to the 1987world agreement on protection of the ozone layer?
Answer: Montreal

Question: The dodo was a native bird of which island?
Answer: Mauritius

Question: What is the name given to the study of earthquakes?
Answer: Seismology

Question: Which common water pollutant is believed to be harmful to newborn babies?
Answer: Nitrate

Question: What natural feature covers approximately 6% of the Earth's land surface, and harbors 40% of the Earth's species?
Answer: Tropical rainforest

Question: What was the name of the dioxin-containing defoliant used during the Vietnam war by the USA army?
Answer: Agent Orange

Question: In which area of the world do tropical rainforests occur?
Answer: On or near the equator

Question: CITES is an international agreement on which environmental problem?
Answer: The trade in endangered species

Question: What prevents the earth's atmosphere from floating out into space?
Answer: Gravity

Question: Which of the emissions from cars are acidic?
Answer: Nitrogen oxides

Question: Which quarry in the Italian region of Tuscany is renowned for the quality of its marble?
Answer: Carrara

Question: What is the name given to the geological time period of 363-290 million years ago during which coal measures were formed?
Answer: Carboniferous

Question: Which is further north, the tropic of cancer or the tropic of Capricorn?
Answer: Tropic of Cancer

Question: What name is given to your angular distance on the Earth's surface relative to the equator?
Answer: Latitude

Question: Which landlocked Asian country is described as the world's 'highest rubbish dump' because of all the refuse left behind by expeditions?
Answer: Nepal

Question: What is the difference between weathering and erosion?
Answer: In erosion, particles of rock are transported away by wind or rain

Question: When and where was the Mount Pinatubo eruption?
Answer: In the Philippines, north of Manila, in 1991

Question: What name is given to the layer of the atmosphere closest to the surface of the Earth?
Answer: Troposphere

Question: What name is given to the Earth's single continent, which existed 250 million years ago?
Answer: Pangaea

Question: Why is lead in petrol dangerous?
Answer: It can affect the development of the nervous system, especially in children

Question: What does a barometer measure?
Answer: Atmospheric pressure

Question: What is the basic chemical composition of malachite?
Answer: Copper carbonate

Question: Which clouds only occur above 10,000 meters?
Answer: Cirrus

Question: What kind of a person might study a podzol?
Answer: A soil scientist

Question: Where might you find an aurora?
Answer: The polar skies

Question: Which gas in the atmosphere can be turned into fertilizer by some microbes?
Answer: Nitrogen

Question: Which layer of the Earth is believed to be formed of molten iron and nickel?
Answer: Outer core

Question: Which is the world's largest nature reserve?
Answer: Etosha Reserve in Namibia

Question: What is the collective noun for rhinoceri?
Answer: Crash

Question: What type of rock is formed by the rapid cooling of molten lava?
Answer: Obsidian

Question: What name is given to the rock formations used as a source of water?
Answer: Aquifers

Question: How long does it take for the Earth to spin once on its axis?
Answer: One day

Question: What is a very hard, naturally-occurring mineral, of which ruby and sapphire are gem quality varieties?
Answer: Corundum

Question: Corundum is a mineral oxide of which metal?
Answer: Aluminum

Question: What is the name of the force which keeps the planets in orbit around the sun?
Answer: Gravity

Question: Which planet is closest to the sun?
Answer: Mercury

Question: Which two planets take less time than Earth to orbit the sun?
Answer: Mercury and Venus

Question: Which planet has a day which lasts eight months?
Answer: Venus

Question: What is the term for a natural satellite?
Answer: Moon

Question: Who was the first man in space?
Answer: Yuri Gagarin

Question: Which was the first space probe to leave the solar system?
Answer: Pioneer 10

Question: How many US space shuttles are there?
Answer: Four: Columbia, Endeavour, Discovery, Atlantis

Question: What is the approximate temperature at the surface of the Sun?
Answer: 5,800 K (5.,530 C)

Question: What is almost halfway through its 10-billion-year life, will expand to become a red giant and then shrink to become a white dwarf?
Answer: The sun

Question: Which planet orbits the Sun four times in the time it takes the Earth to go round once?
Answer: Mercury

Question: Which is the largest moon in the solar system?
Answer: Ganymede

Question: Where is the Palomar telescope?
Answer: Mount Palomar, California

Question: Where, theoretically, might one find objects squeezed to an infinite density?
Answer: Black Hole

Question: Which is the largest moon of Saturn?
Answer: Titan

Question: Which is the largest planet in the solar system?
Answer: Jupiter

Question: What is the smallest planet in the solar system?
Answer: Pluto

Question: Which is the brightest comet in the solar system?
Answer: Halley's comet