Chapter 1: Lay of the Land - and the Water Flashcards
What is Pangea?
The continents were once together and then were drifted apart due to plate tectonics.
Approximately when did Pangea split apart and form the land masses that we recognize today as North, Central, and South America?
About 135 to 100 million years ago.
Who or what are Orizaba, Popocatepetl, and Ixtacihuatl?
Volcanic cones. Rising some 17,000 to 19,000 feet above sea level.
Where can Orizaba, Popocatepetl, and Ixtacihuatl be found?
Central Mexico
What Latin American countries are part of North America?
Mexico
What Latin American countries are part of Central America?
Guatemala, Belize, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama
What Latin American countries are part of South America?
Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, French Guiana, Guyana, Paraguay, Peru, Suriname, Uruguay, Venezuela
What are the major mountain chains in Latin America and where are they located?
Sierra Madre Occidental, Sierra Madre Oriental are in Central Mexico
Andes start in Panama and western Venezuela. They converge in central Colombia and two parallel ranges extend through Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, western Argentina, and Chile.
What are the main river systems and where are they located?
Amazon start in the Peruvian Andes and empties in the Atlantic (Andes to the west, the Guinana and Brazilian Highlands to the northeast and southeast)
Orinoco runs eastward through northern South America
Paraná-Paraguay drains the interior of South America and spans parts of Bolivia, Brazil, Paraguay, Argentina, and Uruguay.
What are some of the most important facts about the Amazon? [Length, width, depth, location, flora and fauna]
Stretches more than 4,000 miles
More than 15 miles across at some points.
Reaches depths of 250 feet.
Do the great population centers of Spanish Latin America (Mexico, Central America, the Andes)—either now or during pre-Columbian times—have significant river systems? Why is this mentioned as being important? Compare this, for example, to the Nile, the Yangtze, the Indus, or the Mississippi.
No.Because they’ve never been the thriving transportation axes of development like those rivers. it was one of the ironies of the geography of Latin America because where there is a great river there aren’t many people and where there is a lot of people there aren’t any major rivers.
In what way is Lake Titicaca compared to the Valley of Mexico?
Lake Titicaca is above 10,000 feet and much colder and more arid than the Valley of Mexico.
What two areas became the two great centers for the emergence of agriculture in the New World with the domestication of maize and potatoes?
The cool highlands of Mexico and the Andes.
What is the weather phenomenon known as El Niño?
An abnormal warming of the ocean along the western coast of South America which reverses normal wind flows and brings enormous rainfall and flooding to South America.
When the Spaniards arrived in 1492, what beasts of burden were already in the Americas? Which were not?
there were no cattle, horses, oxen or camels.
there were alpacas and llamas but the couldn’t carry more than 80 kg. Tapirs were large beasts in the tropical lowlands.
