139 exam 1 Flashcards
Principles of geologic time scale
Hierarchical series of time intervals:
• Eons (largest)
• Eras (i.e. Cenozoic)
• Periods (i.e. Holocene)
o How do you know when to start a new time period?
Define anthropocene
‘the age of man/people’
Have we entered a new time period?
Proposed anthropocene markers
Physical markers:
The land—urban transformations
Changing seas: marine life
• Fishing issue with cod
• New fishing technology brings price of fish down, but destroys other marine life
• Oceans are warming (increases acidity
• ‘Mapping dead zones’ (dropping off of chemical compounds at end of river deltas)
The sixth mass extinction
• 11,575 species are extinct in world
Atmosphere
• Human impacts of atmosphere are significant:
o Temperature change, spike in methane, etc
Problems with proposed anthropocene markers
o The atomic age—crazy amounts of cesium
o The age of consumption—and plastic
o Ultimately our taxonomies don’t matter
Define core
where capital and power have a disproportionate role
• High profit, value-added goods
Define semi-periphery
facilitates geographic interaction and exploits core-periphery tensions
Define periphery
develop dependencies on core
• Low wages and raw materials
Structure of feudal system
Develops b/c only thing the king could do was to enter in these relationships
o Relationships
• King gives charters to merchants who live in town
• Give peasants ability to make money and be king’s army for a bit
• King gives titles to nobles in the country
• Nobles take control of peasants (corvee = labor) and then will be solider to king after able to work for nobles
o **Giving access to these things in order to obtain an army
Origins of feudal system
o The collapse of Carolingian Empire (888 AD)
• When Charlemagne dies, kingdom is split into three parts → competing services
o Norman conquest of England (1066 AD)
• Great political instability
• Viking raiders and traders
• Expansion of Islam
the Feudal Crisis
o Market population flux with agricultural stagnation
o Economic contraction (especially with gold) → no increase in wealth
o Feudal class conflicts
o Titles, privileges, and inheritance
o Warfare → many are small, but significant
o Balkanization
o Rise of coin in mercantile towns and decline of corvee–now competition of labor; without peasantry, whole system collapses
Conditions favoring constitutional monarchies and cores in NW Europe
o Strong central gov’ts
o Extensive bureaucracies
o Large mercenary armies—relationship between people in towns and army
o Taxes
o Town-dwellers, trade, and mean of production
o Population homogenization policies
o Landless wage earners and landless nobles
o Ports—facilitates long distance trade
o Geography of ports during ‘age of discovery’—access to New World
Second Agricultural Revolution
o Fallowing was replaced by rotation
o Food security = very powerful and revolutionary
o The manorial system—All legal and economic power belonged to the lord of the manor, who was supported economically from his land and from contributions from the peasant population under his authority.
Columbian encounter
Columbus encounters New World
Vegetation composition vs. vegetation structure
Composition: species present
Structure: vertical and horizontal distribution of species
Vegetation is correlated with…
Climate Topography--influences of sun and water Soil--water availability, plant/food growth Animals Disturbance
Define disturbance
o Freeing resources made available by other factors
o i.e. fire, any natural disaster
o 3 important factors: type, frequency, and magnitude
o Disturbance leads to succession
Define succession
o The gradual and orderly process of change in an ecosystem brought about by the progressive replacement of one community by another until a stable climax is established
Succession and environmental management (trends?)
- Biomass—increases steadily and then levels off
- Net productivity—increases rapidly and then levels off
- Biodiversity (# of species)—increase quickly, but then declines
Keystone species
Humans are a keystone species; humanized landscape • Hunting • Fishing • Fire—burned landscape often Why? • Subsistence • Game drives (warfare) • Facilitates travel • Insect/pest management • “Honor ancestors” by “cleaning up land” • Established territory
American Indian activities and creation of Eastern Northern American landscape
o Fire
o Gathering (of resources) → ‘hunting and gathering’
o Arboriculture—planting for food, craft, and medicine (specialized uses)
o Crop domestication
o Pan-continental trade (i.e. in Wisconsin, produced alligator teeth)
Columbian exchange (examples?)
o To old world: turkey, tobacco, vanilla, tomatoes, corn, etc. → raw materials
o To new world: grains, onions, bananas, coffee beans, DISEASE, etc. → finished goods
Ecological/biological imperialism (examples?)
o Introduction of pigs—damage of crops, stock, and property; transmits disease
o Introduced dandelions, weeds, honeybees, earthworms
o All made it very difficult for natives since all affected ecosystem differently than what they knew
Historical wilderness and Apostle Islands
o Wilderness is untouched by human hands • But many of the places we called wilderness have great human impacts • Tension • Boating, Native Indians, hunting, etc. o How do you manage wilderness?
Define triangle trade (examples?)
o Includes North America, Europe, and Africa
• From New World: whale oil, lumber, rice, tobacco, sugar
• From Old World: manufactured goods, guns, cloth, beer
• From Africa: gold, ivory, spices, slaves → CHEAP LABOR
