Compare igneous, sedimentary and metamorphic rocks, fossil formation, permeability and soil horizons. Review suitability for your learners before teaching.
Choose “Save as PDF” to keep a copy. Use your browser’s paper setting for A4 or Letter.
Worksheet StudioPractice pack · Ages 7-9
Rocks, fossils & soil layers
Take your time. Show your thinking.
1. Which sedimentary rock is formed mainly from the calcium carbonate shells and skeletons of marine organisms and coral: limestone (and chalk) or granite?
Topsoil → Subsoil → Bedrock
2. When water seeps into a crack in a rock, freezes into ice overnight and expands by about 9%, wedging the rock apart, what type of physical weathering is this: freeze-thaw (frost wedging) or photosynthesis?
Topsoil → Subsoil → Bedrock
3. In which type of rock are fossils of ancient plants and animals almost always found: sedimentary rock or igneous rock?
Topsoil → Subsoil → Bedrock
4. What do we call a rock that has tiny connected pores or spaces that allow water to soak and pass through it (such as sandstone or chalk): a permeable (porous) rock or an impermeable rock?
Topsoil → Subsoil → Bedrock
5. How do earthworms help keep garden and farm soil healthy for plants: their burrows let air and rainwater reach roots, and their castings enrich the soil with nutrients, or they eat rocks into lava?
Topsoil → Subsoil → Bedrock
6. Why does intrusive igneous rock like granite have large, visible mineral crystals, whereas extrusive basalt has tiny crystals: granite cooled slowly deep underground, giving crystals time to grow, or granite is made of sand?
Topsoil → Subsoil → Bedrock
7. When limestone is subjected to high heat and pressure inside Earth’s crust, what hard, crystalline metamorphic rock does it turn into (often used for statues and tiles): marble or sandstone?
Topsoil → Subsoil → Bedrock
8. What is the difference between “weathering” and “erosion” of rocks: weathering is the breakdown of rock in place, whereas erosion is the wearing away and transport of rock fragments by water, wind or ice, or they mean melting?
Topsoil → Subsoil → Bedrock
9. What is the solid, unweathered layer of rock that lies beneath the subsoil at the bottom of a soil profile: bedrock or topsoil?
Topsoil → Subsoil → Bedrock
10. When fine-grained mudstone or shale is compressed by mountain-building forces, what metamorphic rock does it form that splits into flat, waterproof sheets used for roofing: slate or chalk?
Topsoil → Subsoil → Bedrock
11. What is the dark, nutrient-rich organic material in topsoil formed from decomposed leaves, roots and animal remains: humus or magma?
Topsoil → Subsoil → Bedrock
12. Which lightweight volcanic igneous rock is so full of trapped gas bubbles that it can float on water: pumice or marble?
Topsoil → Subsoil → Bedrock
12 questions · Seed 104740 · Age guidance, not curriculum certification
View the answer key
Worksheet StudioAnswer key · Ages 7-9
Rocks, fossils & soil layers
Answers and reasoning. Review before teaching.
1. Which sedimentary rock is formed mainly from the calcium carbonate shells and skeletons of marine organisms and coral: limestone (and chalk) or granite?
Limestone (and chalk)
Limestone is a carbonate sedimentary rock built from ancient marine shells and coral reefs.
2. When water seeps into a crack in a rock, freezes into ice overnight and expands by about 9%, wedging the rock apart, what type of physical weathering is this: freeze-thaw (frost wedging) or photosynthesis?
Freeze-thaw (frost wedging)
Water expands as it freezes, exerting strong pressure that widens rock cracks over repeated cycles.
3. In which type of rock are fossils of ancient plants and animals almost always found: sedimentary rock or igneous rock?
Sedimentary rock
Sedimentary layers gently bury remains in mud or sand; the extreme heat of magma destroys fossils in igneous rock.
4. What do we call a rock that has tiny connected pores or spaces that allow water to soak and pass through it (such as sandstone or chalk): a permeable (porous) rock or an impermeable rock?
Permeable (porous) rock
Permeable rocks have interconnected pore spaces or fractures that let water percolate through.
5. How do earthworms help keep garden and farm soil healthy for plants: their burrows let air and rainwater reach roots, and their castings enrich the soil with nutrients, or they eat rocks into lava?
Their burrows let air and rainwater reach roots, and their castings enrich the soil with nutrients
Earthworms aerate the soil, improve drainage and recycle organic matter into plant nutrients.
6. Why does intrusive igneous rock like granite have large, visible mineral crystals, whereas extrusive basalt has tiny crystals: granite cooled slowly deep underground, giving crystals time to grow, or granite is made of sand?
Granite cooled slowly deep underground, giving crystals time to grow
Slow cooling of magma underground allows large interlocking crystals to form; lava on the surface cools rapidly into tiny crystals.
7. When limestone is subjected to high heat and pressure inside Earth’s crust, what hard, crystalline metamorphic rock does it turn into (often used for statues and tiles): marble or sandstone?
Marble
Marble is metamorphosed limestone.
8. What is the difference between “weathering” and “erosion” of rocks: weathering is the breakdown of rock in place, whereas erosion is the wearing away and transport of rock fragments by water, wind or ice, or they mean melting?
Weathering is the breakdown of rock in place, whereas erosion is the wearing away and transport of rock fragments by water, wind or ice
Weathering breaks rock down in situ; erosion moves the loosened sediment away.
9. What is the solid, unweathered layer of rock that lies beneath the subsoil at the bottom of a soil profile: bedrock or topsoil?
Bedrock
Bedrock is the parent solid rock beneath loose soil and weathered regolith.
10. When fine-grained mudstone or shale is compressed by mountain-building forces, what metamorphic rock does it form that splits into flat, waterproof sheets used for roofing: slate or chalk?
Slate
Slate is a foliated, impermeable metamorphic rock that cleaves into flat tiles.
11. What is the dark, nutrient-rich organic material in topsoil formed from decomposed leaves, roots and animal remains: humus or magma?
Humus
Humus retains moisture and supplies essential mineral nutrients to growing plant roots.
12. Which lightweight volcanic igneous rock is so full of trapped gas bubbles that it can float on water: pumice or marble?
Pumice
Pumice forms from frothy lava rich in gas bubbles, giving it a density lower than water.
12 questions · Seed 104740 · Age guidance, not curriculum certification
Worksheet StudioPractice pack · Ages 7-9
Rocks, fossils & soil layers
Take your time. Show your thinking.
1. Which sedimentary rock is formed mainly from the calcium carbonate shells and skeletons of marine organisms and coral: limestone (and chalk) or granite?
Topsoil → Subsoil → Bedrock
2. When water seeps into a crack in a rock, freezes into ice overnight and expands by about 9%, wedging the rock apart, what type of physical weathering is this: freeze-thaw (frost wedging) or photosynthesis?
Topsoil → Subsoil → Bedrock
3. In which type of rock are fossils of ancient plants and animals almost always found: sedimentary rock or igneous rock?
Topsoil → Subsoil → Bedrock
4. What do we call a rock that has tiny connected pores or spaces that allow water to soak and pass through it (such as sandstone or chalk): a permeable (porous) rock or an impermeable rock?
Topsoil → Subsoil → Bedrock
5. How do earthworms help keep garden and farm soil healthy for plants: their burrows let air and rainwater reach roots, and their castings enrich the soil with nutrients, or they eat rocks into lava?
Topsoil → Subsoil → Bedrock
6. Why does intrusive igneous rock like granite have large, visible mineral crystals, whereas extrusive basalt has tiny crystals: granite cooled slowly deep underground, giving crystals time to grow, or granite is made of sand?
Topsoil → Subsoil → Bedrock
7. When limestone is subjected to high heat and pressure inside Earth’s crust, what hard, crystalline metamorphic rock does it turn into (often used for statues and tiles): marble or sandstone?
Topsoil → Subsoil → Bedrock
8. What is the difference between “weathering” and “erosion” of rocks: weathering is the breakdown of rock in place, whereas erosion is the wearing away and transport of rock fragments by water, wind or ice, or they mean melting?
Topsoil → Subsoil → Bedrock
9. What is the solid, unweathered layer of rock that lies beneath the subsoil at the bottom of a soil profile: bedrock or topsoil?
Topsoil → Subsoil → Bedrock
10. When fine-grained mudstone or shale is compressed by mountain-building forces, what metamorphic rock does it form that splits into flat, waterproof sheets used for roofing: slate or chalk?
Topsoil → Subsoil → Bedrock
11. What is the dark, nutrient-rich organic material in topsoil formed from decomposed leaves, roots and animal remains: humus or magma?
Topsoil → Subsoil → Bedrock
12. Which lightweight volcanic igneous rock is so full of trapped gas bubbles that it can float on water: pumice or marble?
Topsoil → Subsoil → Bedrock
12 questions · Seed 104740 · Age guidance, not curriculum certification
Worksheet StudioAnswer key · Ages 7-9
Rocks, fossils & soil layers
Answers and reasoning. Review before teaching.
1. Which sedimentary rock is formed mainly from the calcium carbonate shells and skeletons of marine organisms and coral: limestone (and chalk) or granite?
Limestone (and chalk)
Limestone is a carbonate sedimentary rock built from ancient marine shells and coral reefs.
2. When water seeps into a crack in a rock, freezes into ice overnight and expands by about 9%, wedging the rock apart, what type of physical weathering is this: freeze-thaw (frost wedging) or photosynthesis?
Freeze-thaw (frost wedging)
Water expands as it freezes, exerting strong pressure that widens rock cracks over repeated cycles.
3. In which type of rock are fossils of ancient plants and animals almost always found: sedimentary rock or igneous rock?
Sedimentary rock
Sedimentary layers gently bury remains in mud or sand; the extreme heat of magma destroys fossils in igneous rock.
4. What do we call a rock that has tiny connected pores or spaces that allow water to soak and pass through it (such as sandstone or chalk): a permeable (porous) rock or an impermeable rock?
Permeable (porous) rock
Permeable rocks have interconnected pore spaces or fractures that let water percolate through.
5. How do earthworms help keep garden and farm soil healthy for plants: their burrows let air and rainwater reach roots, and their castings enrich the soil with nutrients, or they eat rocks into lava?
Their burrows let air and rainwater reach roots, and their castings enrich the soil with nutrients
Earthworms aerate the soil, improve drainage and recycle organic matter into plant nutrients.
6. Why does intrusive igneous rock like granite have large, visible mineral crystals, whereas extrusive basalt has tiny crystals: granite cooled slowly deep underground, giving crystals time to grow, or granite is made of sand?
Granite cooled slowly deep underground, giving crystals time to grow
Slow cooling of magma underground allows large interlocking crystals to form; lava on the surface cools rapidly into tiny crystals.
7. When limestone is subjected to high heat and pressure inside Earth’s crust, what hard, crystalline metamorphic rock does it turn into (often used for statues and tiles): marble or sandstone?
Marble
Marble is metamorphosed limestone.
8. What is the difference between “weathering” and “erosion” of rocks: weathering is the breakdown of rock in place, whereas erosion is the wearing away and transport of rock fragments by water, wind or ice, or they mean melting?
Weathering is the breakdown of rock in place, whereas erosion is the wearing away and transport of rock fragments by water, wind or ice
Weathering breaks rock down in situ; erosion moves the loosened sediment away.
9. What is the solid, unweathered layer of rock that lies beneath the subsoil at the bottom of a soil profile: bedrock or topsoil?
Bedrock
Bedrock is the parent solid rock beneath loose soil and weathered regolith.
10. When fine-grained mudstone or shale is compressed by mountain-building forces, what metamorphic rock does it form that splits into flat, waterproof sheets used for roofing: slate or chalk?
Slate
Slate is a foliated, impermeable metamorphic rock that cleaves into flat tiles.
11. What is the dark, nutrient-rich organic material in topsoil formed from decomposed leaves, roots and animal remains: humus or magma?
Humus
Humus retains moisture and supplies essential mineral nutrients to growing plant roots.
12. Which lightweight volcanic igneous rock is so full of trapped gas bubbles that it can float on water: pumice or marble?
Pumice
Pumice forms from frothy lava rich in gas bubbles, giving it a density lower than water.
12 questions · Seed 104740 · Age guidance, not curriculum certification