YA SciFi. Teens live on a colonized planet wracked with tremors, find ancient civilization. Read early 1990s.

[Karen]

I borrowed two books from this series from a library in the early 90s. A new-ish colony was set up on a planet, but the planet was wracked with tremors. I think it was getting too unstable to keep living there much longer. A group of teens went on a school trip, and got stranded during one of the tremors. While they were trying to find their way back, they came across some remnants of an ancient civilization, who wanted the kids to help save the planet. I think the kids eventually gained some psychic powers. One boy was already stronger than normal because he had moved from a planet with a heavier gravity. There were small animals that liked to mimic what the humans said. The adults thought the animals were regular animals, but it turned out they had some sort of tie to the ancient civilization.

I’ve tried Reddit and StackExchange, and I’m still searching.

[Sue]

This sounds like a mash-up of several Heinlein juveniles. In Farmer in the Sky, they are terraforming Ganymede, and find a cave full of crystals; and a machine that "walks" on legs instead of rolling. Red Planet has juvenile Martians that repeat what you say. Space Cadet has a cadet who comes from Ganymede, and is immune to space-sickness because of the distance he's travelled to get to the Academy.

[Karen]

Sue, sadly, none of that sounds familiar.

One phrase that always sticks in my head was the animals might have been called rovers, because they liked to sing “roll me over over over in the clover”

[Mir]

Could it be a book in the Uplift series by David Brin?

[Len]

Possibly The Bell Tree by Helen Mary Hoover?

It is about uncovering a lost civilization on an alien planet. Not sure about the psychic powers though.

[SBC]

@Paul, do you mean this author? https://www.goodreads.com/author/show...

I can't find any books called The Lost Starship that would seem to match (I was going to add the link).

[Paul]

"Planet of Adventure" series by Jack Vance

or

"The Tripods Trilogy" series by John Christopher

[Mir]

Len wrote: "Possibly The Bell Tree by Helen Mary Hoover?

It is about uncovering a lost civilization on an alien planet. Not sure about the psychic powers though."

Oh, good suggestion. There are other HM Hoover books that have some of these elements. Children of Morrow has psychic kids and Rains of Eridan has exploring a planet...I unfortunately read them too long ago to recall the details.