Chapter One:
-The elements of physical geography are natural in origin, and for this reason physical geography is sometimes called environmental geography. The elements of cultural geography are those of human endeavor, so this branch is sometimes referred to as human geography.
-The solid, inorganic portion of Earth is the lithosphere, comprising of rocks of the Earth’s crust as well as the broken and unconsolidated particles of mineral matter that overlie the solid bedrock.
-The hydrosphere comprises water in all its forms.
-The biosphere encompasses all the parts of Earth where living organisms can exist; in its broadcast and loosest sense, the term also includes the vast variety of earthly life forms (properly referred to as biota).
-Earth is one of the nine planets of our solar system, which also contains at least 44 moons revolving around the planets, scores of comets (composed of frozen gases that hold together pieces of rock and metallic minerals), more than 50,000 asteroids (objects made of rock and/or metal that are mostly small, but with a few as large as several hundred miles in diameter), and millions of meteors (most of them the size of sand grains).
-Where the plane of the equator intersects Earth’s surface is the imaginary midline of Earth, called simply the equator.
-Any plane that is passed through the center of a sphere bisects that sphere (divides it into two equal halves) and creates what is called a great circle when it intersects the surface of the sphere.
-Planes passing through any other part of the sphere produce what are called small circles where they intersect the surface.
-The edge of the sunlit hemisphere, called the circle of illumination, is a great circle that divides Earth between a light half and a dark half.
-Our earthly grid system is referred to as a graticule and consists of lines of latitude and longitude.
-Latitude is the distance measured north and south of the equator.
-A line connecting all points of the same latitude is called a parallel because it is parallel to all other lines of latitude.
-Longitude is distance measured east and west on Earth’s surface.
-The principal argument for adopting the Greenwich Meridian as the prime meridian was a practical one: more than two-thirds of the world’s shipping lines already used the Greenwich Meridian as a navigational base.
-Because of its elliptical orbit, the Earth-Sun distance is not constant; rather, it varies from 91,445,000 miles at the perihelion position on January 3 to 94,555,000 miles at the aphelion position on July 4.
-The plane that passes through the Sun and through every point of Earth’s orbit around the Sun is called the plane of the ecliptic.
-The Earth’s rotation axis is tilted about 23.5 degrees away from the perpendicular. This tilt is referred to as the inclination of the rotation axis.
-At any time during the year, Earth’s rotation axis is parallel to its orientation at all other times. This is called the polarity, or parallelism, of the axis.
-The angle at which the Sun’s rays strike Earth is fundamental in determining the amount of incoming solar radiation-insolation-reaching any given point on Earth.
-On or about June 21 (the exact date varies slightly from year to year), the noon rays from the Sun are perpendicular at the latitude line lying 23.5 degrees north of the equator. This parallel, the Tropic of Cancer, marks the northernmost location reached by perpendicular rays in the annual cycle of Earth’s revolution.
-The northern polar circle, at 66.5 degrees north, is the Arctic Circle; the southern polar circle, at 66.5 degrees south, is the Antarctic Circle.
-On or about December 21 (slightly variable from year to year), the perpendicular rays of the Sun strike the parallel of 23.5 degrees south, the Tropic of Capricorn.
-Although the angle of incoming perpendicular rays shifts 47 degrees from June 21 to December 21, the relationships between Earth and the Sun are very similar on those days, which are called the solstices.
-Approximately March 20 and September 22 (dates vary slightly from year to year) which are the equinoxes.
-The Romans used sundials to tell time and gave great importance to the noon position, which they called the meridian-the suns highest point of the day.
-Although Greenwich mean time (GMT) is now referred to as Universal Time Coordinated (UTC), the prime meridian is still the reference for standard time.
-The international date line deviates from the 180th meridian in the Bering Sea to include all of the Aleutian Islands of Alaska within the same day and again in the South Pacific to keep islands of the same group within the same day.
Chapter Two:
-A map is a two-dimensional representation of the spatial distribution of selected phenomena-normally components of a landscape.
-The scale of a map gives the relationship between length measured on the map and the corresponding distance on the ground.
-A graphic scale uses a line mark off in graduated distances.
-A word or verbal scale states in words the ratio of the map scale length to the distance on Earth’s surface, such as one inch to one mile.
-A fractional scale compares map distance with ground distance by proportional numbers expressed as a fraction or ratio called a representative fraction.
-A large-scale map is one that has a relatively large representative fraction, which means that the denominator is small.
-A small-scale map has a small representative fraction-one having a large denominator.
-A map projection is a system whereby the rounded surface of Earth is transformed in order to display it on a flat surface.
-The projection can be interrupted in the Pacific, Atlantic, and Indian oceans based on central meridians (meridians that pass through the center of each major landmass and serve as a baseline from which that continent can be mapped).
-In an equivalent projection, the size ratio of any given area on the map to the corresponding area on the ground is the same all over the map.
-A conformal projection is one in which proper angular relationships are maintained so that the shape of something on the map is the same as its shape on earth.
-The word isoline is a generic term that refers to any line that joins points of equal value of something.
-A contour line is a line joining points of equal elevation.
-A isobar is a line joining points of equal atmospheric pressure.
-A isogonic line is a line joining points of equal magnetic declination.
-A isohyet is a line joining points of equal quantities of precipitation.
-A isotherm is a line joining points of equal temperature.
-The numerical difference between one isoline and the next is called the interval.
-The global positioning system (GPS) is a satellite based system for determining accurate positions on or near Earth’s surface.
-Geographic Information Systems (GIS) are automated systems for the capture, storage, retrieval, analysis, and display of spatial data.
-Remote sensing is any measurement or acquisition of information by a recording device that is not in physical contact with the object under study.
-An aerial photograph is one taken from an elevated platform, such as a balloon, airplane, rocket, or satellite.
-Photogrammetry is the science of obtaining reliable measurements from photographs and, by extension, the science of mapping from aerial photographs.
-Orthophoto maps are multicolored, distortion-free photographic images.
-Color infrared film (color IR) is film sensitive to radiation in the infrared region of the spectrum.
-Landsat is a series of satellites that orbit Earth at an altitude of 570 miles and can image all parts of the planet except the polar regions every nine days.
-None of the middle or far infrared part of the electromagnetic spectrum, called the thermal infrared (thermal IR), can be sensed with film, and as a result special supercooled scanners are needed.
-The basic Landsat imaging instrument is a multispectral scanning system (MSS), a four-band system that gathers a set of digital numbers for each picture element (pixel) collected.
-The seven bands of the thematic mapper are more narrowly defined, a refinement that provides improved resolution and greater imaging flexibility.
Chapter Three:
-Air, generally used a synonym for atmosphere, is not a specific gas but rather a mixture of gases, mainly nitrogen and oxygen.
-Ozone is a molecule made up of three oxygen atoms joined together.
-For the most part ozone is concentrated in a layer of the atmosphere called the ozone layer, which lies between 9 and 30 miles above Earth’s surface.
-The solid and liquid particles found in the atmosphere are collectively called particulates.
-The thermal layers from top to bottom of the atmosphere are the troposphere, stratosphere, mesosphere, thermosphere, and the exosphere.
-The top of the first three layers are called tropopause, stratopause, and mesopause.
-The principal gases of the atmosphere have a remarkably uniform vertical distribution throughout the lowest 50 miles or so of the atomosphere. This zone of homogenous composition is referred to as the homosphere.
-The sparser atmosphere above this zone does not display such uniformity; rather, the gases tend to be layered in accordance with their molecular masses-nitrogen below, with oxygen, helium, and hydrogen successively above. This higher zone is called the heterosphere.
-The ozone layer is sometimes referred to as the ozonosphere.
-The ionosphere is a deep layer of electrically charged molecules and atoms (which are called ions) in the middle and upper mesosphere and the lower thermosphere, between 40 and 250 miles.
-The term weather refers to short run atmospheric conditions that exist for a given time in a specific area.
-Climate is the aggregate of day-to-day weather conditions over a long period of time.
-The most important elements of weather and climate are temperature, moisture content, pressure, and wind.
-Variations in climatic elements are caused by or at least strongly influenced by certain semipermanent attributes of our planet, which are often referred to as controls.
Chapter Four:
-Wavelengths that measure from about 0.01 to 0.4 micrometers are the ultraviolet waves, which are too short to be seen by the human eye.
-Between 0.7 and 1000 micrometers are infrared waves, which are too long to be seen by the human eye.
-Solar radiation is often referred to as shortwave radiation.
-The constant amount of incoming energy-referred to as the solar constant-is slightly less than 2 calories per square centimeter per minute.
-A Langley is equal to 1 calorie per square centimeter.
-Radiation is the process by which heat energy is emitted from a body.
-A body that emits the maximum amount of radiation possible-at every wavelength-is called a blackbody.
-Heat energy striking an object can be absorbed by the object like water into a sponge; this process is called absorption.
-Reflection is the ability of an object to repel waves without altering either the object or the waves.
-Particulate matter and gas molecules in the air sometimes deflect light waves and redirect them in a process known as scattering.
-Transmission is the process whereby a wave passes completely through a medium, as when light waves are transmitted through a pane of clear, colorless gas.
-The greenhouse effect is when solar energy readily penetrates to Earth’s surface, but reradiated terrestrial energy is mostly trapped in the lower troposphere and much of it is reflected back toward the ground. This entrapment keeps Earth’s surface and lower troposphere at a higher average temperature than would be the case if there were no atmosphere.
-The movement of heat energy from one molecule to another without changes in their relative positions is called conduction.
-In convection, heat is transferred from one point to another by moving a substance.
-When convecting liquid or gas moves horizontally, we call the process advection.
-Adiabatic cooling is the cooling by expansion in rising air.
-Adiabatic warming is warming by compression in descending air.
-Evaporation is when liquid water is converted to gaseous water vapor.
-Condensation is when gaseous water vapor condenses to liquid water.
-In evaporation, energy is stored as latent heat; in condensation, the latent heat is released.
-Albedo is reflectivity of an object; the higher the albedo value, the more radiation the object reflects.
-The angle at which rays from the sun strike Earth’s surface is called the angle of incidence.
-Water has a higher specific heat than land; specific heat is the amount of energy required to raise the temperature of 1 gram of substance by 1 degree Celsius.
-Energy is the capacity to do work and can take various forms.
-Heat is on form of energy; it is associated with how fast the atoms in any solid, liquid, or gas are vibrating. The more heat energy any atom contains, the faster it vibrates.
-Temperature is an expression of the degree of hotness or coldness of a substance.
-Sensible temperature is the sensation of temperature that we feel in response to the total condition of the air around us; it may or may not be representative of the actual air temperature.
-Various kinds of oceanic water movements are categorized as currents, and it is air blowing over the surface of the water that is the principal force driving the major surface ocean currents.
-The average lapse rate or normal vertical temperature gradient is 3.6 degrees F per 1000 feet.
-Temperature inversion is a situation in which temperature in the troposphere increases, rather than decreases, with increasing altitude.
-Radiational inversions are found at ground level and result from rapid radiational cooling.
-Advectional inversion is where there is a horizontal inflow of cold air into an area.
-Cooler air slides down a slope into a valley, thereby displacing slightly warmer air in cold-air-drainage inversion.
-Temperature inversions well above the ground surface nearly always are the result of air sinking from above in subsidence inversions.
Chapter Five:
-The pressure of gas is defined as the force the gas exerts on some specified area of the container walls.
-Atmospheric pressure is the force exerted by the gas molecules on some area of Earth’s surface or on any other body, including yours.
-Density is the amount of matter in a unit volume.
-Weather stations normally record atmospheric pressure, either continuously or periodically, in units called millibars (the instrument used to measure pressure is called a barometer).
-The relative closeness of isobars indicates the horizontal rate of pressure change, or pressure gradient.
-Instead of being called wind, however, small-scale vertical motions are normally referred to as updrafts and downdrafts; large-scale vertical motions are ascents and subsidences; the term wind is applied only to horizontal movements.
-Where wind moves parallel to the isobars is called geostrophic wind.
-A high-pressure center is known as an anticyclone, and the flow of air associated with it is described as being anticyclonic.
-Low-pressure centers are called cyclones, and the associated wind movement is said to be cyclonic.
-Each ocean basin has a large semipermanent high pressure cell centered around 30 degrees of latitude called a subtropical high (STH).
-Areas characterized by warm, tropical sunshine and an absence of wind are called the horse latitudes, presumably because sixteenth and seventeenth century sailing ships were sometimes becalmed there and their cargos of horses were thrown overboard to conserve drinking water.
-Issuing from the equator sides of the STH’s and diverging toward the west and toward the equator is the major wind system of the tropics known as the trade winds.
-The zone where air from two hemispheres meets is usually called the intertropical convergence zone (ITC), but it is also referred to by such names as equatorial front (a front is an area where unlike air masses come together), intertropical front, and doldrums (this last name is attributed to the fact that sailing ships were often becalmed in these latitudes.
-Winds that flow west to east around the world in the latitudinal zone between 30 and 60 degrees both north and south of the equator are called the westerlies.
-In the westerlies, there are two cores of high-speed winds called the polar front jet stream and the subtropical jet stream.
-Frequently sweeping undulations develop in westerlies flow and produce a meandering path that wanders widely to north and south are referred to as long waves or Rossby waves (after a Chicago meteorologist C.G. Rossby, who first explained their nature).
-Situated over both polar regions are high-pressure cells called polar highs.
-The winds that generally from east to west and are between the polar highs and 60 degrees latitude are called the polar easterlies.
-A zone of low pressure at about 50 to 60 degrees latitude in both Northern and Southern hemispheres is called the subpolar low and often contains a polar front.
-The word monsoon is derived from the Arabic and has come to mean a seasonal reversal of winds, a general sea-to-land movement (onshore flow) and a general land-to-sea movement (offshore flow) in winter.
-In the upper troposphere (at about 50,000 feet), a poleward flow begins with strong antitrade winds moving toward the northeast in the Northern Hemisphere.
-At about 30 degrees latitude, much air subsides into the STHs, especially over the eastern parts of oceans and general ridge of high pressure that circles the globe there. These two prominent tropical circulations are called Hadley cells, after George Hadley (1685-1768), an English meteorologist who first conceived the idea of enormous convective circulation cells in 1735.
-A common local wind system along tropical coastlines to a lesser extent during the summer in midlatitude coastal areas is the cycle of sea breezes during the day and land breezes at night.
-During the day heated air rising creating a low-pressure area and cooler air from the valley floor flows upslope from the high-pressure area to the low-pressure area is called valley breeze.
-After dark the mountain slopes lose heat rapidly through radiation, which chills the adjacent air, causing it to slip downslope as a mountain breeze.
-A frequent winter phenomenon in areas of even gentle slope is air drainage, which is simply the nighttime sliding of cold air downslope to collect in the lowest spots; this is a modified form of mountain breeze.
-Related to simple air drainage is the more general and more powerful spilling of air downslope in the form of katabatic winds.
-Another downslope wind is called a foehn in the Alps, and a chinook in the Rocky Mountains. Similar winds in California are known as Sanata Anas.
Chapter Six:
-Water vapor is a colorless, odorless, tasteless, invisible gas that mixes freely with the other gases of the atmosphere.
-This unending circulation of our planet’s water supply is referred to as the hydrologic cycle, and its essential feature is that liquid water (primarily from the oceans) evaporates into the air, condenses to the liquid (or solid) state, and returns to Earth as some form of precipitation.
-The pressure exerted by water vapor in the air is called vapor pressure.
-When there are enough water vapor molecules in air to exert the maximum vapor pressure at any given temperature, we say that the air is saturated with water vapor.
-The process whereby plants give up moisture through their leaves is called transpiration, and so the combined process of water vapor entering the air from land sources is called evapotranspiration.
-Potential evapotranspiration is the amount of evapotranspiration that would occur if the ground at the location in question were sopping wet all the time.
-A direct measure of the water vapor content of air is absolute humidity, which is the amount of water vapor in a given volume of air.
-Relative humidity is the amount of water vapor in the air at a given temperature compared with the amount that could be there if the air were saturated at that temperature.
-The temperature at which saturation is reached is called the dew point.
-Hygroscopic particles or condensation nuclei serve as collection centers for water molecules.
-As a parcel of unsaturated air rises, it cools at the relatively steady rate of 5.5 degrees F per 1000 feet known as the dry adiabatic lapse rate. The altitude at which this occurs is known as the lifting condensation level (LCL).
-The diminished rate of cooling averaging at about 3.3 degrees F per 1000 feet is called the saturated adiabatic lapse rate.
-Cirriform clouds are thin and wispy and composed of ice crystals rather than water droplets.
-Stratiform clouds appear as grayish sheets that cover most or all of the sky, rarely being broken up into individual cloud units.
-Cumuliform clouds are massive and rounded, usually with a flat base and limited horizontal extent but often billowing upward to great heights.
-Three of the ten types are purely of one form, and these are called cirrus clouds, stratus clouds, and cumulus clouds.
-High clouds consist of cirrus, cirrocumulus, and cirrostratus.
-Middle clouds consist of altocumulus and altostratus.
-Low clouds consist of stratus, stratocumulus, and nimbostratus.
-Cloud of vertical development consist of cumulus and cumulonimbus.
-Fog is simply a cloud on the ground.
-Radiation fog results when the ground loses heat through radiation, usually at night.
-Advection fog develops when warm, moist air moves horizontally over a cold surface, such as a snow-covered ground or cold ocean current.
-Upslope fog or orographic fog is created by adiabatic cooling when humid air climbs a topographic slope.
-Evaporation fog results when water vapor is added to cold air that is already near saturation.
-Dew also originates from terrestrial radiation.
-The tendency of any object to rise in a fluid is called the buoyancy of that object.
-If a parcel of air resists vertical movement, it is said to be stable.
-Air is said to be unstable if it either rises without any external force other than the buoyant force or continues to rise after such external force has ceased to function.
-An intermediate condition between absolute stability and absolute instability is called conditional stability.
-Convective precipitation typically is showery, with large raindrops falling fast and furiously but for only a short duration.
-Orographic precipitation is when ascending air is cooled to the dew point.
-Rain shadow is applied to both the leeward slope and the area beyond as far as the drying influence extends.
-As warmer air is forced to rise, it may be cooled to the dew point with resulting clouds and precipitation known as frontal precipitation.
-Convergent precipitation is when forced uplift enhances instability and is likely to produce showery precipitation.
Chapter Seven:
-The formation of air masses is normally associated with what are called source regions.
-When unlike air masses meet, they do not mix readily; instead, a boundary zone called a front develops between them.
-A front that brings warm air is called a warm front.
-A front that brings cold air is called a cold front.
-When neither air mass displaces the other, their common boundary is called a stationary front.
-An occluded front is formed when a cold front overtakes a warm front.
-Midlatitude cyclones dominate weather maps throughout the midlatitudes, are basically responsible for most day-to-day weather changes, and bring precipitation to much of the populated portions of the planet.
-Midlatitude anticyclones are frequently referred to as a high (H) and are extensive, migratory high-pressure cells of the midlatitudes.
-Tropical cyclones are intense, revolving, rain drenched, migratory, destructive storms that occur eratically in certain regions of the tropics and subtropics. Known as hurricanes in North and Central America, typhoons in the western North Pacific, baguios in the Philippines, and simply cyclones in the Indian Ocean and Australia.
-A remarkable feature is the nonstormy eye in the center of the storm. The winds do not converge to a central point but rather reach their highest speed at the eye wall, which is the edge of the eye.
-An easterly wave is a long but weak, migratory, low-pressure system that may occur almost anywhere between 5 and 30 degrees latitude.
-A thunderstorm, defined as a violent convective storm accompanied by thunder and lightening, is usually localized and short lived.
-A tornado is a deep low-pressure cell surround by a violently whirling cylinder of wind.
Chapter Eight:
-The Koppen system is the most widely used climatic classification system and meets these three criteria reasonably well: 1. Relatively simple to comprehend and to use. 2. Shows some sort of orderly pattern over the world. 3. Gives some indication of zone genesis.
-The modified Koppen encompasses the basic design of the Koppen system but with a variety of minor modifications.
-A simple graphic representation of monthly temperature and precipitation for a specific weather station is a climograph.
-Tundra originally referred to low, ground-hugging vegetation of high latitude and high altitude regions, but the term has been adopted to refer to the climate of the high altitude regions as well.
Chapter Nine:
-Water vapor can be converted to ice by sublimation, which is defined as the process whereby a substance goes either from the gaseous state directly to the solid state or from the solid state directly to the gaseous state without ever passing through the liquid state.
-Capillarity enables water to circulate upward through rock, soil, and the roots and stems of plants.
-The reason drying up and flooding do not take place is runoff, that portion of Earth’s circulating moisture that moves in the liquid state from land to sea.
-The salinity of seawater is a measure of the concentration of dissolved salts, which are mostly sodium chloride but also include salts containing magnesium, sulfur, calcium, and potassium.
-Most permanent ground is permafrost, which is permanently frozen subsoil.
-A lake is a body of water surrounded by land.
-A swamp has a plant growth that is dominantly trees whereas a marsh is vegetated primarily with grasses and rushes.
-The quantity of water that can be held in subsurface material (rock or soil) depends on the porosity of the material, which is the percentage of the total volume of the material that consists of voids (pore spaces or cracks) that can fill with water.
-The ability to transmit underground water is termed permeability, and this property of subsurface matter is determined by the size of pores and by their degree of turning through these small, interconnected openings.
-Interstices are openings like in clay.
-Impermeable materials composed of components such as clay or very dense rock, which hinder or prevent water movement, are called aquicludes.
-Usually at least three and often four hydrologic zones are arranged one below another. The topmost band, the zone of aeration, is a mixture of solids, water, and air. Immediately below the zone of aeration is the zone of saturation, in which all pore spaces in the soil and cracks in the rocks are fully saturated with water. The moisture in this zone is called groundwater; it seeps slowly through the ground following the pull of gravity and guided by rock structure. The top of the saturated zone is referred to as the water table. Sometimes a localized zone of saturation develops above an aquiclude, and this configuration forms a perched water table. When water is taken from the well faster than it can flow in from the saturated rock, the water table drops in the immediate vicinity of the well, in the approximate shape of an inverted cone known as a cone of depression. The zone of confined water contains one or more aquifers into which water can infiltrate. The elevation to which the water rises is known as the piezometric surface. In some cases, the pressure is enough to allow the water to rise above the ground known as an artesian well. If the confining pressure is sufficient to push the water only partway to the surface and it must be pumped the rest of the way, the well is subartesian. In the waterless zone, there is no water because the overlying pressure increases the density of the rock and so there are no pores.
Chapter Ten:
-Solar energy can ignite life processes in the biosphere only through photosynthesis, the production of organic matter by chlorophyll-containing bacteria and plants.
-The main carbon cycle is conversion from carbon dioxide to living matter and back to carbon dioxide.
-Most of the oxygen in the atmosphere is molecular oxygen produced when plants decompose water molecules in photosynthesis. Some atmospheric oxygen is bound up in water molecules that came from evaporation or plant transpiration, and some is bound up in the carbon dioxide released during animal respiration. Other sources of oxygen for the oxygen cycle include atmospheric oxygen, oxygen involved in the oxidative weathering of rocks, oxygen stored in and sometimes released from carbonate rocks, and human induced processes such as the burning of fossil fuels.
-Nitrogen fixation is the process where nitrogen is converted to nitrogen compounds (nitrates) that can be used by plants, and the overall process is called the nitrogen cycle.
-The unending flows of energy, water, and nutrients through the biosphere are channeled in significant part by direct passage from one organism to another in pathways referred to as food chains.
-A food chain can also be conceptualized as a food pyramid because the number of energy-trapping organisms is much, much larger than the number of primary consumers, the number of secondary consumers, and so on up the pyramid.
-The term biota refers to the total complex of plant and animal life.
-The basic subdivision of biota separates flora, or plants, from fauna, or animals.
-An ecosystem includes all the organisms in a given area, but it is more than simply a community of plants and animals existing together. The ecosystem concept encompasses the totality of interactions among the organisms and between the organisms and the nonliving portion of the environment in the area under consideration.
-Among terrestrial ecosystems, the type that provides the most appropriate scale for understanding world distribution patterns is called a biome, defined as any large, recognizable assemblage of plants and animals in functional interaction with its environment.
-Normally the communities merge more or less imperceptibly with one another through ecotones-transistion zones of competition in which the typical species of one biome intermingle with those of another.
-The relationship that involves how much light an organism receives during any 24-hour period is called photoperiodism.
-Soil characteristics, known as edaphic factors, have direct and immediate effect on flora but usually indirect in their effect on fauna.
Chapter Eleven:
-Plant succession is when one type of vegetation is replaced naturally by another.
-Plants that endure seasonal climatic fluctuations from year to year are called perennials, whereas those that perish during times of climatic stress (such as winter) but leave behind a reservoir of seeds to germinate during the next favorable period are called annuals.
-Xerophytic is a term for plants that are structurally adapted to withstand protracted dry conditions.
-Plants having stems that have fleshy, spongy structures that can store moisture are called succulents.
-Hydrophytes are species living more or less permanently immersed in water and hygrophytes are moisture –loving plants that generally require frequent soakings with water.
-Bryophytes include the true mosses, peat mosses, and liverworts.
-Pteridophytes are ferns, horsetails, and club mosses (which are not true mosses).
-Gymnosperms (naked seeds) carry their seeds in cones, and when the cones open, the seeds fall out.
-Angiosperms (vessel seeds) are the flowering plants.
-Woody plants have stems composed of hard fibrous material, whereas herbaceous plants have soft stems.
-An evergreen tree is one that sheds its leaves on a sporadic or successive basis but always appears to be fully leaved.
-A deciduous tree is one that experiences an annual period in which all leaves die and usually fall from the tree, due to either a cold season or a dry season.
-Broadleaf trees have leaves that are flat and expansive in shape, whereas needleleaf trees are adorned with thin slivers of tough, leathery, waxy needles rather than typical leaves.
-The point being reached where change is no longer noticeable, and each succeeding generation of the association of constant is much like its predecessor is referred to as the climax vegetation, and the various stages leading up to it are called seral associations.
-Forests consist of trees growing so close together that their individual leaf canopies generally overlap.
-Woodlands are tree-dominated plant associations in which the trees are spaced more widely apart than in forests and do not have interlacing canopies.
-Shrublands are plant associations dominated by relatively short woody plants, generally called shrubs or bushes.
-Grasslands may contain scattered trees and shrubs, but the landscape is dominated by grasses and forbs (broadleaf herbaceous plants).
-Deserts are typified by widely scattered plants with much bare ground interspersed.
-Tundra consists of a complex mix of very low plants, including grasses, forbs, dwarf shrubs, mosses, and lichens, but no trees.
-Wetlands are characterized by shallow standing water all or most of the year, with vegetation rising above the water level.
-Vertical zonation is significant elevational changes in short horizontal distances cause various plant associations to exist in relatively narrow zones on mountain slopes.
-The direction in which a sloped surface faces is often a critical determinant of vegetation composition
-A adret slope is hot and dry, and its vegetation not only is sparser and smaller than that on adjacent slopes having a different exposure to sunlight but is also likely to have a different species composition.
-An ubac slope is oriented so that sunlight strikes it at a low angle and is thus much less effective in heating and evaporating.
-In mountainous areas where a river runs through a valley, the vegetation associations growing on either side of the river have a composition that is significantly different from that found higher up on the slopes forming the valley.
-Riparian vegetation is where streams may be lined with trees even though no other trees are to be found in the landscape.
-Mutualism involves a mutually beneficial relationship between the two organisms, as exemplified by the tickbirds that invariably accompany rhinoceroses.
-Commensalism involves two dissimilar organisms living together with no injury to either, as represented by burrowing owls sharing the underground home of prairie dogs.
-Parasitism involves one organism living on or in another, obtaining nourishment from the host, which is usually weakened and sometimes killed by the actions of the parasite.
-Animals without backbones are called invertebrates.
-Vertebrates are animals that have a backbone that protects the main nerve (or spinal) cord.
-Rainforest fauna is largely arboreal (tree dwelling) because the principal food sources are in the canopy rather than on the ground.
-Boreal forest is sometimes called taiga.
-Humans have accounted for many introductions of wild plants and animals into new habitats; such organisms are called exotics in their new homelands.
Chapter Twelve:
-Regolith (blanket rock) I loose organic material that lies like a blanket over unfragmented rock.
-The sources of the rock fragments that make up soil is parent material, which may be either bedrock or loose sediments transported from elsewhere by water, wind, or ice.
-Microbes help release nutrients from dead organisms for use by live ones by decomposing organic matter into humus, a dark adhesive of minute particles, and by converting nutrients to forms usable by plants.
-Leaves, twigs, stalks, and other dead plant parts accumulate at the soil surface, where they are referred to collectively as litter.
-Leaching is when water dissolves essential soil nutrients and makes them available to plant roots and the dissolved nutrients are carried downward in solution, to be partly redeposited at lower levels and tends to deplete the topsoil of soluble nutrients.
-As water percolates into the soil, it picks up fine particles of mineral matter from the upper levels and carries them downward in a process called eluviation. These particles are eventually deposited at a lower level, and this deposition process is known as illuviation.
-The relationship of the moisture added to the soil by percolation of rainfall or snowmelt is diminished largely through evapotranspiration is referred to as the soil-water balance.
-Field capacity means that most of the pore spaces are filled with water.
-Heavy use and diminished precipitation may combine to deplete all the moisture available to plants, and the wilting point is reached.
-In late summer and fall, as air temperature decreases and plant growth slackens, evapotranspiration diminishes rapidly. At this time, the soil-water balance shifts once again to a water surplus, which continues through the winter. Then the cycle begins again. Such variation in the soil-water balance through time is called a soil-water budget.
-The size groups in the standard classification scheme for particle sizes are called separates.
-The individual particles of most soils tend to aggregate into clumps called peds, and it is these clumps that determine soil structure.
-Particles smaller than about 0.1 micrometer in diameter are called colloids.
-The minerals that form cations are called bases, and they include such elements as calcium, potassium, and magnesium, which are all essential for soil fertility and plant growth.
-The combination of colloid and attached cations is called the colloidal complex, and it is a delicate mechanism.
-The capability of a soil to attract and exchange cations is known as its cation exchange capacity (CEC).
-Another class of chemicals are acids.
-Any solution of chemicals can be characterized on the basis of its acidity and alkalinity.
-Soil tends to have more or less distinctly recognizable layers, called horizons, each with different characteristics.
-A vertical cross section (as might be seen in a road cut or the side of a trench dug in a field) from the Earth’s surface down through the soil layers and into the parent material is referred to as a soil profile.
-Only five major pedogenic (soil-forming) regimes exist
-Laterization is named for the brick-red color of the soil it produces.
-The general term applied to soils produced by laterization is latosols.
-Podzolization is another regime after the color of the soil it produces, in this case gray.
-Soils produced by podsolization often are referred to collectively as podzols.
-Gleization is a regime restricted to waterlogged areas, normally in a cool climate.
-The general term for soils produced by gleization is gley soils.
-Calcification (so called because many calcium salts are produced in this regime) is the dominant pedogenic process in these regions, as typified by the drier prairies of North America, the steppes of Eurasia, and the savannas and steppes of the subtropics.
-Moisture is drawn upward and into the atmosphere by intense evaporation. The evaporating water leaves behind various salts in or on the surface of the soil, sometimes in such quantity as to impart a brilliant white surface color to the land, and the pedogenic regime is called salinization.
-The classification system that is presently in use in the United States is called simply Soil Taxonomy.
-The two basic types of diagnostic horizon are the epipedon, which is essentially the A horizon or the combined O/A horizon, and the subsurface horizon, which is roughly equivalent to the B horizon.
-The least well developed of all soils, Entisols have experienced little mineral alteration and are virtually without pedogenic horizons.
-Vertisols contain a large quantity of clay that becomes a dominant factor in the soil’s development.
-Having developed from volcanic ash, Andisols have been deposited in relatively recent geological time.
-Another immature order of soils is the Inceptisols. Their distinctive characteristics are relatively faint, not yet prominent enough to produce diagnostic horizons.
-Nearly one-fifth of the land surface of Earth is covered with Aridisols, the most extensive spread of any soil order.
-The distinctive characteristic of Mollisols is the presence of a mollic epipedon, which is a mineral surface horizon that is dark and thick, contains abundant humus and basic cations, and retains a soft character (rather than becoming hard and crusty) when it dries out.
-The key diagnostic feature of a Spodosol is a spodic subsurface horizon, an illuvial dark or reddish layer where organic matter, iron, and aluminum accumulate.
-The most wide ranging of the mature soils, Alfisols occur extensively in low and middle latitudes.
-Ultisols are roughly similar to Alfisols except that the former are more thoroughly weathered and more completely leached of nutrient bases.
-The most thoroughly weathered and leached of all soils are the Oxisols, which invariably display a high degree of mineral alteration and profile development.
-Least important among the soil orders are the Histosols, which occupy only a small fraction of Earth’s land surface, a much smaller area than any other order.
Chapter Thirteen:
-The crust, the outermost shell, consists of a broad mixture of rock types.
-At the base of the crust there is thought to be a significant change in mineral compostition; this relatively narrow zone of change is called the Mohorovicic discontinuity (named for the Yugoslavian seismologist A. Mohorovicic, who discovered it), or Moho for short.
-Beneath the Moho is the mantle, which extends downward to a depth of approximately 1800 miles.
-The uppermost mantle zone plus the crust are together called the lithosphere. Beneath this rigid zone, and extending downward to a depth of possibly 200 miles, is a zone in which the rocks are so hot that they lose much of their strength and are easily formed, like tar. This is called the asthenosphere (weak sphere). Below the asthenosphere is the deep mantle, the mesosphere, where the rocks are believed to be rigid again.
-The innermost portion of Earth is the inner core, a supposedly solid and very dense mass having radius of about 900 miles.
-Recent seismic and magnetic evidence makes it clear that the continental drift concept is valid, and its elaboration as the theory of plate tectonics is now most universally accepted by Earth scientists.
-Naturally formed compounds and elements of the lithosphere are called minerals, which are solid substances having a specific chemical composition and a characteristic crystal structure.
-Inside Earth is an unknown amount of molten mineral matter called magma.
-At or near the surface, however, almost all the lithosphere is solid, generally known as rock, composed of aggregated mineral particles that occur in bewildering variety and complexity.
-Solid rock sometimes is found right at the surface, in which case it is called an outcrop.
-Over most of Earth’s land area, though, solid rock exists as a buried layer called bedrock and covered by a layer of regolith.
-The initial formation of the planet involved the cooling and solidification of magma, which produced the first solid material-igneous rock.
-Extrusive rocks were spewed out onto Earth’s surface while still molten, solidifying quickly in the open air.
-Intrusive rocks (also called plutonic rocks) cool and solidify beneath Earth’s surface, where surrounding nonmagnetic material serves as insulation that greatly retards the rate of cooling.
-Much of fragmented mineral material is transported by water moving in rivers or streams as sediment.
-The combination of pressure and cementation consolidates and transforms sediments to sedimentary rock.
-Most sedimentary deposits are built-up in more or less distinct horizontal layers called strata, which vary in thickness and composition.
-Metamorphic rocks are those that have been drastically changed by heat and/or pressure.
-Topography is the surface configuration of the Earth.
-A land form is an individual topographic feature, of whatever size; thus the term could refer to something as minor as a cliff or a sand dune, as well as something as major as a peninsula or a mountain range.
-Geomorphology is the study of the characteristics, origin, and development of landforms.
-Relief refers to the difference in elevation between the highest and lowest points in an area.
-Uniformitarianism means that the processes that formed the topography of the past are the same ones that have shaped contemporary topography; these processes are still functioning in the same fashion and, barring unforeseen cataclysm, will be responsible for the topography of the future.
-Structure refers to the nature, arrangement, and orientation of the materials making up the feature being studied.
-Process considers the actions that have combined to produce the landform.
-Slope is the fundamental aspect of shape for any landform.
-Drainage refers to the movement of water (from rainfall or snowmelt) either over Earth’s surface or down into the soil and bedrock.
-Each continent has a margin that is submerged, called the continental shelf.
Chapter Fourteen:
-The lower layer is oceanic crust (sometimes referred to as sima because of its two most prominent mineral compounds, silica and magnesium), which forms the deep ocean basin floors and at least partially underlies the continents as well.
-The general crustal structure appears to be continents of lightweight granitic material floating on a foundation of denser basaltic material, introducing the concept of plasticity and a model in which the continents are free to move rather than being cemented in place.
-Related to plasticity is the principle of isostasy, which is defined as the maintenance of hydrostatic equilibrium in the crust.
-Wegener postulated a massive super continent, which he called Pangaea, as having existed about 250 million years ago and then breaking up into several large sections that have continued to move away from one another to this day.
-Seafloor spreading says that oceanic ridges are formed by currents of magma rising up from the mantle, often during volcanic eruptions, and spreading laterally.
-At other places in the ocean basins, usually near the trenches, older crust descends into the interior, in a process called subduction, where it is presumably melted and recycled into the convective system.
-At a divergent boundary, magma from the asthenosphere wells up in the opening between plates.
-At a convergent boundary, plates moving in opposite directions meet, and the result of the collision normally is a vast crumpling of the edges as one plate subducts under the other.
-At a transform boundary, two plates slip past one another laterally.
-A terrane is a small-to-medium mass of lithosphere carried a long distance by a drifting plate that eventually converges with another plate.
-There are places on Earth where magma from deep in the mantle comes either to or almost at the surface at locations that are not anywhere near a plate boundary; these leaky spots in the interior of a plate are referred to as mantle plumes or hot spots.
-Vulcanism is a general term that refers to all phenomena connected with the origin and movement of molten rock.
-When magma is expelled onto Earth’s surface while it is still molten, the activity is extrusive and is called volcanism; when magma solidifies in the shallow crust near the surface, it is an intrusive process; when magma solidifies deep inside Earth far below the surface, the process is called plutonic activity.
-Magma extruded onto Earth’s surface is called lava.
-In addition to an outward flow of lava in a volcanic eruption, such solid matter as rock fragments, solidified lava blobs, ashes, dust (collectively called pyroclastic material), as well as gas and steam, may be hurled upward in prodigious quantities.
-The term flood basalt is applied to the vast accumulations of lava that build up, layer upon layer, sometimes covering tens of thousands of square miles to depths of hundreds of feet.
-Basaltic lava tends to flow quite easily over the surrounding surface, forming low lying shield volcanos.
-Volcanos that emit higher silica intermediate lavas usually erupt explosively and tend to develop into symmetrical, steep-sided volcanoes known as composite volcanos or stratovolcanoes.
-Lava domes (also called plug domes) have masses of very viscous lava that are too thick and pasty to flow very far.
-Cinder cones are the smallest of the volcanic mountains.
-A caldera is produced when a volcano explodes, collapses, or does both.
-A volcanic neck is a small, sharp spire that rises abruptly above the surrounding land.
-A batholith is a subterranean igneous body of indefinite depth and enormous size (it must have a surface area of at least 40 square miles).
-Similar to a batholith but much smaller is a stock. It is also amorphous and of indefinite depth, but it has a surface area of only a few square miles at most.
-A laccolith is produced when slow-flowing, viscous magma is forced between horizontal layers of preexisting rock.
-A dike is a vertical or nearly vertical sheet of magma thrust upward into preexisting rock, sometimes forcing its way into vertical fractures and sometimes melting its way upward.
-A sill is also a long, thin intrusive body, but its orientation is determined by the structure of the preexisting rocks.
-Least prominent among igneous intrusions but widespread in occurrence are thin veins of magma that may occur individually or in profusion.
-Diastrophism is a general term that refers to the deformation of the Earth’s crust.
-When crustal rocks are subjected to certain forces, particularly lateral compression, they are often deformed by being bent, in a process called folding.
-A monocline is a one-sided slope connecting two horizontal or gently inclined strata. A simple symmetrical upfold is an anticline, and a simple downfold is a syncline.
-An upfold that has been pushed so vigorously from one side that it becomes oversteepened enough to have a reverse orientation on the other side is referred to as an overturned fold. If the pressure is enough to break the oversteepened limb and cause a shearing movement, the result is an overthrust fold, which causes older rock to ride above younger rock.
-When rock is broken with accompanying displacement (actual movement of the crust on one or both sides of the break), the action is called faulting.
-A normal fault results from tension stresses in the crust.
-A reverse fault is produced from compression stresses, with the upthrown block rising steeply above the downthrown block, so that the fault scarp would be severely oversteepened if erosion did not act to smooth the slope somewhat.
-In a strike-slip fault, the movement is entirely horizontal, with the adjacent blocks being displaced laterally relative to each other.
-In overthrust faults, compression forces the upthrown block to override the downthrown block at a relatively low angle, sometimes for many miles.
-A surface block may be severely faulted and upthrown on one side without any faulting or uplife on the other. When this happens, the block is tilted asymmetrically, producing a steep slope along the fault scarp and a relatively gentle slope on the other side of the block creating a fault-block mountain range.
-A horst is the uplift of a block of land between two parallel faults.
-A graben is a block of land bounded by parallel faults in which the block has been downthrown, producing a distinctive structural valley with a straight, steep-sided fault scarp on either side.
-Downfaulted grabens occasionally extend for extraordinary distances as linear valleys enclosed between steep fault scarps known as rift valleys.
Chapter 15:
-The overall effect of the disintegration, wearing away, and removal of rock material is generally referred to as denudation, a term that implies a lowering of continental surfaces.
-The first step in the shaping of Earth’s surface by external processes is weathering, the mechanical disintegration and/or chemical decomposition that destroys the coherence of bedrock and begins to fragment rock masses into progressively smaller components.
-Joints are innumerable in most rock masses, dividing them into blocks of various sizes.
-Faults generally are individual or occur only in small numbers, whereas joints normally are multitudinous.
-Large joints or joint sets that extend for long distances and through a considerable thickness of rocks are termed master joints.
-Mechanical weathering is the physical disintegration of rock material without any change in its chemical composition.
-Frost shattering or frost wedging is when an opening in rock contains water and the temperature falls below 32 degrees F, ice forms, wedging its way downward. When the temperature rises above 32 degrees F, the ice melts and the water sinks farther into the slightly enlarged cavity. With renewed freezing, the wedging is repeated.
-Salt wedging happens when salts crystallize out of solution as water evaporates.
-Chemical weathering is the decomposition of rock by the alteration of its minerals.
-Oxidation is when oxygen atoms combine with atoms of various metallic elements making up the minerals in the rock and form new products.
-Hydrolysis is the chemical union of water with another substance to produce a new compound that is nearly always softer and weaker than the original.
-Carbonation is the reaction between the carbon dioxide in water and carbonate rocks to produce a very soluble product (calcium bicarbonate) that can readily be removed by runoff or percolation and can also be deposited in crystalline form if the water is evaporated.
-Plants frequently and animals occasionally contribute to weathering, called biological weathering.
-Mass wasting is the process whereby weathered material is moved a relatively short distance downslope under the direct influence of gravity.
-The steepest angle that can be assumed by loose fragments on a slope without downslope movement is called angle of repose.
-Quick clays are clay formations that spontaneously change from a relatively solid mass to a near-liquid condition as the result of a sudden disturbance or shock.
-Fall refers to the falling of pieces of rock downslope. Pieces of rock that fall in this fashion are referred to collectively as talus or scree. Fragments that accumulate relatively uniformly along the base of the slope result in a landform called a talus slope or talus apron. The dislodged rocks collect in sloping, cone-shaped heaps called talus cones.
-A landslide is essentially an instantaneous collapse of a slope and does not necessarily involve the lubricating effects of water or clay.
-Slumping involves slope collapse in which the rock or regolith moves downward and at the same time rotates outward along a curved surface that has its concave side facing upward.
-The most common flow movement is earthflow, in which a portion of a water-saturated slope moves a limited distance downhill, normally during or right after a heavy rain.
-A mudflow originates on slopes in arid and semiarid country when a heavy rain following a long dry spell produces a cascading runoff too voluminous to be absorbed into the soil.
-If large pieces are so numerous, the term debris flow is used in preference to mudflow.
-Extremely slow flows of talus are called rock glaciers.
-The slowest and least perceptible form of mass wasting is creep; consists of a very gradual downhill movement of soil and regolith so unobtrusive that normally it can be recognized only by indirect evidence.
-Under certain conditions, and usually on steep, grassy slopes, creep can produce a complicated terracing effect that resembles a network of faint trails. The individual ridges are called terracettes.
-A special form of creep that produces a distinctive surface appearance is solifluction, a process largely restricted to tundra landscape beyond the tree line.
Chapter Sixteen:
-Fluvial processes are defined as those that involve running water, encompasses both the unchanneled downslope movement of surface water, called overland flow, and the channeled movement of water along a valley bottom, or streamflow.
-A valley is that portion of the terrain in which a drainage system is clearly established.
-An interfluve is the higher land above the valley sides that separates adjacent valleys.
-The drainage basin or watershed of a particular stream is all the area that contributes overland flow and groundwater to that stream.
-The drainage basin terminates at a drainage divide, which is the line of separation between runoff that descends in the direction of the drainage basin in question and runoff that goes toward an adjacent basin.
-Most of the great mass of material reaches the streams in the valley bottoms, where it is added to the stream-eroded debris to constitute the stream load.
-Some minerals, mostly salts, are dissolved in the water and carried in solution as the dissolved load.
-Very fine particles of clay and silt are carried in suspension, moving along with the water without ever touching the streambed. These tiny particles, called the suspended load, have a very slow settling speed, even in still water.
-Sand, gravel, and larger rock fragments constitute the bedload. The smaller particles are moved along with the general streamflow in a series of jumps or bounces collectively referred to as saltation. Coarser pieces are moved by traction, which is defined as rolling or sliding along the streambed.
-Competence is a measure of the particle size a stream can transport, expressed by the diameter of the largest particles that can be moved.
-Capacity is a measure of the amount of solid material a stream has the potential to transport, normally expressed as the volume of material passing a given point in the stream channel during a given time interval.
-Alluvium is stream deposited debris, characterized by a sorting of particles on the basis of size.
-Most streams have very erratic regimes, with great fluctuation in discharge, or volume of flow.
-Straight channels are short and uncommon and usually indicative of strong control by the underlying geologic structure.
-A line running in the direction of the water and indicating the deepest parts of the channel, called the thalweg, rarely follows a straight path between the stream banks; rather it wanders back and forth across the channel.
-Sinuous channels are winding channels that are found in almost every type of topographic setting.
-Meandering channels exhibit an extraordinarily intricate pattern of smooth curves in which the stream follows a serpentine course, twisting and contorting and turning back on itself, forming tightly curved loops and then abandoning tem, cutting a new and different and equally tortuous course.
-The cutoff portion of a channel is called an oxbow lake because its rounded shape resembles the bow part of yokes used on teams of oxen.
-Braided streams consist of multiplicity of interwoven and interconnected shallow channels separated by low bars or islands of sand, gravel, and other loose debris.
-Small streams come together to form successively larger ones, and small valleys join more extensive ones which is described by stream order.
-Perennial streams are permanent but in less well-watered parts of the world, many of the major streams and most tributaries carry water only part of the time, either during the wet season or during and immediately after rains. These impermanent flows are called ephemeral streams if they carry water only during and immediately after a rain and intermittent streams if they flow for only part of the year, although the term intermittent is sometimes applied to both cases.
-Base level is an imaginary surface extending underneath the continents from sea level at the coasts.
-A graded stream is when the gradient just allows the stream to transport its load.
-Waterfalls and rapids are often found in valleys where downcutting is prominent. They occur in steeper sections of the channel, and their faster, more turbulent flow intensifies erosion. These are collectively termed knickpoints.
-The valley bottom is term a floodplain. The outer edges of the floodplain are usually bounded by a slope, marking the outer limit of lateral erosion and undercutting where the flat terrain abruptly changes to a line of bluffs.
-The mouth of the river in a landform is called a delta, after a fancied resemblance to the Greek capital letter delta.
-Deltas usually consist of a maze of roughly parallel channels called distributaries.
-Natural levees merge outwardly and almost imperceptibly with the less well-drained and lower portions of the floodplain, generally referred to as back swamps.
-A tributary stream that flows downvalley in the backswamp zone, running parallel to the main stream for some distance before finding an entrance is referred to as a yazoo stream, after Mississippi’s Yazoo River, which flows parallel to the Mississippi River for about 175 miles.
-The remnant of a previous valley floor is called a stream terrace.
-Entrenched meanders are formed when an area containing a meandering stream is uplifted slowly and the stream incises downward while still retaining the meandering course.
-Davisian theory is now usually referred to as the geomorphic cycle.
-The end product of the geomorphic cycle is a flat, featureless landscape with minimal relief is called a peneplain.
-Walther Penck’s ideas have come to be called the theory of crustal change and slope development.
-Equilibrium theory suggests that slope forms are adjusted to geomorphic processes so that there is a balance of energy-the energy provided is just adequate for the work to be done.
Chapter Seventeen:
-Solution along joints and bedding planes in limestone beneath the surface often creates large open areas called caverns.
-Speleothems are deposited when water leaves behind the compounds (principally carbon dioxide and calcite) it was carrying in solution.
-Where water drips from the roof, a pendant structure grows slowly downward like an icicle (stalactite). Where the drip hits the floor, a companion feature (stalagmite) grows upward.
-Karst is used as the catchall name of a cornerstone concept that describes the special landforms that develop on exceptionally soluble rocks.
-Sinkholes are rounded depressions formed by the dissolution of surface carbonate rocks, typically at joint intersections.
-A sinkhole that results from the collapse of the roof of a subsurface cavern is called a collapse doline; these may have vertical walls or even overhanging cliffs.
-Tower karst have vertical sides and conical or hemispheric shapes, sometimes riddled with caves.
-Some sinkholes have distinct openings at their bottom (called swallow holes) through which surface drainage can pour directly into an underground channel, often to reappear at the surface through another hole some distance away.
-A hot spring has water that bubbles out either continuously or intermittently.
-A geyser is where hot water usually issues only sporadically, and most or all of the flow is a temporary ejection (called an eruption) in which hot water and steam spout upward. Then the geyser subsides into apparent inactivity until the next eruption.
-A fumarole is a surface crack directly connected to a deep-seated heat source.
Chapter Eighteen:
-In dry lands, mechanical weathering is dominant (whereas chemical weathering dominates in humid regions).
-Soil creep is a relatively minor phenomenon on most desert slopes.
-In deserts, the covering of soil and regolith is either thin or absent in most places, a condition that exposes the bedrock to erosion and contributes to the stark, rugged, rocky terrain.
-A relatively large proportion of the desert surface is impermeable to percolating water, permitting little moisture to seep into the ground.
-Deserts have an abundance of sand in comparison with other parts of the world.
-Much of the rainfall in desert areas is intense, which means that runoff is usually rapid.
-Almost all streams in desert areas are ephemeral, flowing only during and immediately after a rain.
-Desert landforms are produced largely by wind action.
-Desert areas contain many watersheds that do not drain ultimately into any ocean.
-The absence of a continuous vegetative cover is the key factor to what makes deserts what they are.
-An erg is a large area covered with loose sand, generally arranged in some sort of dune formation by the wind.
-Reg is a surface covering of coarse gravel, pebbles, and/or boulders from which all sand and dust have been removed by wind and water.
-Desert varnish is a dark, shiny coating, consisting mostly of iron and manganese oxides, that forms on the surface of pebbles, stones, and larger outcrops after long exposure to the desert air.
-A hamada is a barren surface of consolidate material.
-Dry lake beds are called playas, although the term salina may be used if there is an unusually heavy concentration of salt in the lake-bed sediments. If a playa surface is heavily impregnated with clay, the formation is called a claypan. Intermittent streams may have sufficient flow to bring water to the playa, forming a temporary playa lake.
-Whenever a land surface erodes, variations in rock type and structure produce differences in the slope and shape of the resulting landform, a process called differential erosion.
-Steep-sided mountains, hills, or ridges are referred to as inselbergs (island mountain) because they resemble rocky islands standing above the surface of a broad sea. A bornhardt is composed of highly resistant rock and has a rounded form.
-A gently inclined bedrock platform, called a pediment, is a residual surface (a surface created by erosion rather than deposition) extending outward from the mountain front.
-Piedmont means any zone at the foot of a mountain range.
-There is normally a pronounced change in the angle of slope at the mountain base (the piedmont angle), with a steep slope giving way abruptly to a gentle one.
-Deflation is the shifting of loose particles as a result of their being blown either through the air or along the ground.
-A blowout or deflation hollow is a shallow depression from which an abundance of fine material has been deflated.
-When sand is spread across the landscape as an amorphous sheet it is called a sand plain. A sand dune is where loose windblown sand is heaped onto a mound or low hill.
-Wind erodes the windward slope of the dune, forcing the sand grains up and over the crest to be deposited on the steeper leeward side, or slip face.
-The barchans usually occurs as an individual dune migrating across a nonsandy surface.
-Transverse dunes, which are also crescent-shaped but less uniformly so than barchans, occur where the supply of sand is much greater than that found in locations that have barchans; normally the entire landscape leading to transverse-dune formation is sane covered.
-Seifs are long, narrow dunes that usually occur in multiplicity and in a generally parallel arrangement.
-Loess is a wind-deposited silt that is fine grained, calcareous, and usually buff colored.
-An alluvial fan is the particular characteristic of a basin-and-range piedmont.
-Continued growth and more complete overlap may eventually result in a continuous alluvial surface all across the piedmont, in which case it is difficult to distinguish between individual fans. This feature is known as either a piedmont alluvial plain or a bajada.
-Mesa is Spanish for table and implies a flat-topped surface. Scarp is short for escarpment and pertains to steep, more or less vertical cliffs.
-Erosional platforms are properly referred to as plateaus if they are bounded on one or more sides by a prominent escarpment. If a scarp edge is absent or relatively inconspicuous, the platform is called a stripped plain.
-Sapping is when groundwater seeps and trickles out of a scarp face, eroding fine particles and weakening the cohesion of the face.
-A butte is a erosional remnant having a very small surface area and cliffs that rise conspicuously above their surroundings.
-A pinnacle or pillar is a final spire of resistant caprock protecting weaker underlying beds.
-The badlands are intricately rilled and barren terrain.
Chapter Nineteen:
-Beyond the outermost extent of ice advance is an area of indefinite size called the periglacial zone, which was never touched by glacial ice but where indirect influence of the ice was felt.
-The buildup of ice on the continents meant that less water was available to drain from the continents into the oceans, a condition that resulted in a worldwide lowering of sea level during every episode of glacial advance.
-The enormous weight of accumulated ice on the continents caused portions of Earth’s crust to sink, in some cases by as much as 4000 feet.
-During the Pleistocene glaciations, there was, on all continents, a considerable increase in the amount of moisture available.
-Glaciers that formed in nonmountainous areas of the continents are called continental ice sheets.
-Around the margin of the sheet, some long tongues of ice, called outlet glaciers, extend between rimming hills to the sea.
-Tongues of ice that travel down valleys in the mountains are called valley glaciers. If the leading valley glacier reaches a flat area and so escapes from the confines of its valley walls, it is called a piedmont glacier.
-Alpine glaciers are those that develop individually high in the mountains rather than as part of a broad icefield, usually at the heads of valleys. Very small alpine glaciers confined to the basins where they originate are called cirque glaciers.
-The persistence of any glacier depends on the balance between accumulation (addition of ice by incorporation of snow) and ablation (wastage of ice through melting and sublimation).
-Neve is crystalline snow that is compressed by overlying snow into granular form, and in the process its density is approximately doubled. With more time and further compression, the granules are packed more closely and begin to coalesce, the density increasing steadily until it is about half the density of water.
-Separating the two glacial zones is the theoretical equilibrium line, along which accumulation exactly balances ablation.
-Plucking is when rock particles beneath the ice are grasped as meltwater refreezes in bedrock joints and fractures. As the ice moves along, these particles are plucked out and dragged along. This action is particularly effective on leeward slopes (slopes facing away from the direction of ice movement.
-Glacial flour is rock material that has been ground very fine.
-Drift is all material moved by glaciers, a misnomer coined in the eighteenth century when it was believed that the vast debris deposits of the Northern Hemisphere were leftovers from biblical floods.
-Rock debris deposited directly by moving or melting ice, with no meltwater flow or redeposition involved, is given the name till.
-Outsized boulders that are included in glacial till that are such enormous fragments, which may be very different from the local bedrock, are called glacial erratics.
-A roche moutonnee is often produced when a bedrock hill is overridden by moving ice.
-A till plain is when deposition of till is uneven, producing an irregularly undulating surface of braod, low rises and shallow depressions.
-A moraine is a glacier-deposited landform composed entirely or largely of till.
-When originally formed, moraines tend to have relatively smooth and gentle slopes, which become more uneven with the passage of time, as the blocks of stagnant ice, both large and small, included within the till eventually melt, creating irregular depressions, known as kettles, in the morainal surface.
-A drumlin is a low, elongated hill deposited by ice sheets.
-Stratified drift means that there has been some sorting of debris as it was carried along by the meltwater.
-Outwash plains are smooth, flat alluvial aprons deposited beyond recessional or terminal moraines by streams issuing from the ice.
-A lengthy deposit of glaciofluvial alluvium confined to a valley bottom is termed a valley train.
-Eskers are composed largely of glaciofluvial gravel and are thought to have originated when streams flowing through tunnels in the interior of the ice sheet became choked off during a time in which the ice was neither flowing nor advancing.
-Small, steep mounds or conical hills of stratified drift are found sporadically in areas of ice-sheet deposition are kames, which appear to be of diverse origin, but they are clearly associated with meltwater depositon in stagnant ice.
-Where several cirques have been cut back into interfluve from opposite sides of a divide, a narrow, jagged, serrated spine of rock may be all that is left of the ridge crest called an arête. If two adjacent cirques on opposite sides of a divide are being cut back enough to remove part of the arête between them, the sharp-edged pass or saddle through the ridge is referred to as a col. A horn is a steep-sided, pyramidal rock pinnacle formed by expansive quarrying of the headwalls where three or more cirques intersect.
-A tarn is when the glacial ice in a cirque has melted away and there is often enough of a depression formed to hold water.
-The general course of a valley is straightened because the ice does not meander like a stream; rather it tends to grind away the protruding spurs that separate side canyons, creating what are called truncated spurs, and thereby replacing the sinuous course of the stream with a straight glacial trough.
-Various shallow low lakes occur in a sequence called paternoster lakes, after a fancied resemblance to beads on a rosary.
-When ice melts, valleys that are of different depths become obvious; mouths of the tributary valleys are characteristically perched high along the sides of the major troughs, forming hanging valleys.
-Patterned ground is applied to various geometric patterns that repeatedly appear over larger areas in the Arctic.
-Proglacial lakes are where ice flows across a land surface and the natural drainage is either impeded or blocked, and meltwater from the ice can become impounded against the ice front.
Chapter Twenty:
-Headlands are promontories of sloping land projecting into the sea.
-Eustatic forces are the latter producing sea-level change entirely by increase or decrease in the amount of water in the world ocean.
-Longshore currents is when water moves roughly parallel to the shoreline in a generally downwind direction.
-Beach drifting is a zizzag movement of particles that results in downwind displacement parallel to the coast.
-Estuaries are long fingers of seawater projecting inland.
-A coast along which there are numerous estuaries is called a ria shoreline.
-The beach is an exposed deposit of loose sediment adjacent to a body of water.
-The backshore is the upper part of the beach, landward of the high-water line. It is usually dry, being covered by waves only during severe storms. It contains one or more berms, which are flattish wave-deposited sediment platforms. The foreshore is the zone that is regularly covered and uncovered by the rise and fall of tides. The offshore is the zone that is permanently underwater; it is the place where waves break and where surf action is greatest.
-As waves eat away at a rocky headland, steep wave-cut cliffs are formed, and these cliffs receive the greatest pounding, abrasion, pneumatic push, and chemical solution at the cliff base frequently cuts a notch at the high-water level.
-Seaward of the cliff face, the pounding and abrasion of the waves create a broad erosional platform called a wave-cut bench, usually slightly below water level.
-Much debris is shifted directly seaward, where a great deal of it is deposited just beyond the wave-cut bench as a wave-built terrace.
-An extensive barrier island isolates the water between itself and the mainland, forming a body of quiet salt or brackish water called a lagoon. A lagoon becomes increasingly filled with water-deposited sediment from coastal streams, wind-deposited sand from the barrier island, and tidal deposits if the lagoon has an opening to the sea. All three of these sources contribute to the buildup of mudflats on the edges of the lagoon.
-Any linear deposit attached to the land at one end and extending into open water is called a spit.
-In some cases, the spit becomes extended clear across the mouth of a bay to connect with land on the other side, producing what is called either a bay barrier or a baymouth bar and transforming the bay to a lagoon. Conflicting water movements in the bay can cause the deposits to curve toward the mainland, forming a hook at the outer end of the spit. A tombolo is formed when waves converging in two directions on the landward side of a near-shore island deposit their sand, so that the bar connects the island to the land.
-Fjords are when troughs once gouged out either by glaciers or by ice sheets have been cut so deep that their bottoms are presently far below sea level. Gradually, therefore, as the ice has melted, the troughs have filled up with seawater.
-In tropical oceans, nearly all continents and islands are fringed with either coral reefs or some other type of coralline formation.
-An attached reef built right onto a volcano is called a fringing reef.
-A ring of coral, which may be a broken circle because of the varying thickness of the coral, appearing to float around a central volcanic peak (but in actuality attached to the flanks of the sinking mountain far below the water surface), is called a barrier reef.
-Once the top of a volcano sinks below the water surface, the reef surrounding a now landless lagoon is called an atoll.
-Individual islets are called motus.
Geography yay! 