A Sense Of Place Flashcards
Where do I live?
I live in NI, part of the UK found on the western edge of Europe in the Northern Hemisphere. Lat -54.78.77°N. Lon -6.49.23°W
Which Continent is the largest?
Asia, contains 29% of Earth’s landmass with an area of 43.8 million miles squared.
What is the second largest continent?
Africa, 20% of Earth’s landmass and an area of over 30 million square miles.
What is the third largest continent?
North America, 17% of Earth’s landmass area of 24.5 million square miles
Which is the fourth largest continent?
South America, contains 12% of Earth’s landmass and has 17.8 million square miles.
Which is Earth’s fifth largest continent?
Antarctica, 9% of Earth’s landmass and an area of 13.7 million square miles
What is the second smallest continent?
Europe, 7% of Earth’s landmass and an area of 10.2 million square miles.
What is the smallest continent?
Oceania, 6% of Earth’s landmass and an area of 9 million square miles.
What are lines of latitude?
Horizontal lines, drawn around the Earth. Latitude goes from the equator which is 0°, to the North and South Poles at 90°
What are lines of longitude?
Vertical lines drawn along Earth. They go from Greenwich Mean at 0° to the International Date line at 180°
Where are the tropics located?
23.5° North for the Tropic of Cancer and 23.5° South for the Tropic of Capricorn
How many degrees is there in a time zone?
15°
What is the name for the very centre of the Earth?
The Inner Core
What surrounds the inner core?
The Outer Core
What temperature is the inner core?
5500° C
What temperature is the mantle?
3500°C
How thick is the crust?
6-20km
How are the plates divided?
See book
What types of plates are there?
Continental and oceanic
What are some typical features of a continental plate?
Usually 35 to 100km thick, between 1000 and 3500 million years old and generally lighter than oceanic plates.
What are some typical features of oceanic plates?
6-10 km thick, less than 250 million years old, heavy
Why do plates move?
Convection currents in the mantle cause the slow movement of molten magma and this movement causes the plates to move
What are the types of plate boundary?
Constructive, destructive and conservative
What happens at a constructive boundary?
Plates pull apart, allowing magma to rise and cool to form new land
What happens at a destructive plate boundary?
Plates are forced together causing a plate to be subducted or for both plates to buckle upwards forming fold mountains
What happens at a conservative plate boundary?
Plates slide past one another without crust being formed or destroyed
How do constructive plate boundaries work?
The plates will pull apart, allowing magma to flow up to to surface and cool.
What happens if two oceanic plates meet?
The heavier will be forced under the other.
What will be at a destructive boundary?
Volcanoes and earthquakes
What happens if two continental plates collide?
They will buckle upwards to form fold mountains
What are conservative plates?
Plates that do not slide past one another easily. The keep colliding with one another causing sudden seismic jolts which in turn cause earthquakes. Eg. San Andreas Fault
What is an earthquake?
Imagine powerful forces pushing two huge masses of rock into one another. The rock stores this pressure for a while until it becomes too much. One mass of rock will give way, slipping upwards. The stored energy is released in waves called seismic waves. These waves travel through the Earth in every direction, shaking everything. It is this shaking that is called an earthquake
What is the focus of an earthquake?
The point from which the waves emerged. The epicentre is the pint on the surface
How are earthquakes measured?
Using a seismometer. They record the shaking on a graph to determine how much energy was released.
What is the unit of measurement for an earthquake?
Magnitude, measured on the Richter scale. A 1 point increase on the scale means that shaking is 10 times greater and 30 times more energy is released
What is a tsunami?
A tsunami is a series of waves caused by an earthquake on the ocean floor. In deep water the waves might only be in one meter high but in shallow water the waves can be thirty meters high
What is a volcano?
A volcano is an opening or crack where magma erupts through the surface. Above the surface this magma is known as lava
What happens during a volcanic eruption?
Lots of gas will begin to flow out of the vents before a lava explodes from it