Chapter 13 Flashcards by Nicholas Imperius

High rainfall belts are regions of ___, where warm, moist air masses meet and rise.

Convergence

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Low-rainfall belts are regions of ___, where cool, dry air masses sink downward.

Divergence

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These belts lie in the two polar regions and in the subtropical regions creating two dry climate subtropical regions and two dry, cold polar climates

Low-rainfall belts

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These belts lie along the equator and the polar fronts resulting warm-humid and cold-humid climate zones.

High-rainfall belts

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___ is an arid land that receives less than 250mm of rainfall or snow equivalent per year and is sparsely vegetated unless it is irrigated

Desert

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___ is land in which the annual rainfall ranges between 250-500mm

Semiarid

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Arid and semiarid lands are collectively known as ___, are characterized by lack of available water.

Drylands

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When evaporation exceeds precipitation on a regular basis, water availability is ___

Low

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What are the 5 types of deserts?

Subtropical
Continental Interior
Rainshadow
Coastal
Polar

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___ deserts are associated with two belts of low rainfall near the 30N and 30S latitudes

Subtropical

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___ deserts receive very little precipitation and are considered “frozen” deserts

Polar

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___ is the worlds largest desert

Antarctica

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Which 3 types of deserts are related to geography and not global air circulation

Continental Interior
Rainshadow
Coastal

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The ___ desert is the greatest of the world subtropical deserts

Sahara

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A ___ desert forms when a mountain range creates a barrier to the flow of moist air, causing a zone of precipitation on the downward side of the range

Rainshadow

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___ deserts form along the margins of continents where cold, upwelling seawater cools the air, decreasing its ability to form precipitation

Coastal

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___ deserts receive little rain since they are far from oceans

Continental Interior

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___ is the processes related to wind and are particularly effective as agents of erosion in arid and semarid regions

Aeolian

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Sediment carried by the wind tends to be ___ than the sediment carried by water or ice

Finer

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Typically, the largest particles that can be lifted in the airstream are ___

Grains of sand

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___ is sediment transport in which the wind causes particles to roll along the ground.

Surface Creep

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___ is sediment transport in which particles move forward in a series of short jumps along arc-shaped paths

Saltation

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___ is sediment transport in which the wind carries very fine particles over long distance and periods of time

Suspension

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The largest grains are transported by ___

Surface Creep

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As wind speed increases, smaller grains are bumped or lifted into the air, where they experience ___

Saltation

Finer dust-sized particles may be carried aloft to heights of a kilometer or so, where they can travel along in ___ as long as the wind keeps blowing

Suspension

What are the two ways for flowing air to erode land surface?

Abrasion | Deflation

___ is wind erosion in which airborne particles chip small fragments off rocks that protrude above the surface

Abrasion

A bedrock surface or stone that has been abraded and shaped by windblown sediment is a ___

Ventifact

___ is wind erosion in which loose particles of sand and dust removed by the wind, leaving coarser particles behind

Deflation

___ on a large scale only takes place where there is little or no vegetation and where loose particles are fine enough to be picked up by the wind.

Deflation

Continued deflation sometimes leads to the development of ___ where most of the fine particles are removed

Desert Pavement

Desert landforms can either be ___, ___, or ___

Erosional Depositional Combination of Both

A ___ is a hill or ridge of sand deposited by winds.

Dune

A typical dune is ___, with a gentle windward slope and a steep leeward face.

Asymmetrical

___ dunes are formed when wind blows in several different directions.

Star

Crescent-Shaped dunes are called ___, wind blows mainly in one direction

Barchans

___ dunes run parallel to the prevailing winds

Longitudinal

When there is a shit ton of sand supply, barchan dunes can merge and form ___ dunes

Transverse

Coastal regions where moist wind off the ocean allows vegetation to grow, are a typical environment for ___ dunes

Parabolic

When the sand reaches the top of the dune, the sand cascades down the steep leeward side, this is called ___

Slip Face

Crisscrossed strata within the dune, called ___, are former slip faces

Cross beds

The sliding sand on a slip face comes to rest at the ___

Angle of Repose

The angle of repose is steeper for more ___ grained minerals

Coarse

___ are landforms that form when a resistant stratum is underlain by a softer, more easily eroded stratum that is removed and carried away.

Hoodoos

Landforms could be steep-sided but flat-topped ___ or table-like ___

Buttes, Mesas

The rapid rainfall runoff erodes steep-sided canyons, called ___, into the landscape

Arroyos

If canyon openings are closely spaced along the base of a mountain range, the alluvial fans sometimes coalesce into a broad alluvial apron called a ___

Bajada

___ is the invasion of desert conditions into nondesert areas

Desertification

___ is land damage or loss of productivity caused by human activity, which may lead to the advance of desert conditions into non desert areas

Land Degradation

In the region south of the Sahara lies a drought-prone belt of dry grassland known as the ___, and the annual rainfall is only __ to __ cm

Sahel, 10-30

Signs of desertification are

- lower water tables - higher levels of salt in water and topsoil - reduction in surface water supplies - unusually high rates of soil erosion - destruction of vegetation

___ is the perennially frozen part of the hydrosphere

Cryosphere

A semipermanent or perennially frozen body of ice consisting largely of recrystallized snow, which moves under the pull of gravity

Glacier

A(n) ___ is the largest type of glacier on earth

Ice Sheet

___ are thick sheets of floating ice hundreds of meters thick that adjoin glaciers on land

Ice Shelves

___ is a form of ice cover that never touches land at all

Sea Ice

A glacier where the ice is near its melting point throughout the interior. These glaciers form in the low and middle latitudes

Temperate Glaciers

At high latitudes and high altitudes, the mean annual temperature is below freezing, the temperature in the glacier remains low, and little or no seasonal melting occurs. What type of glacier is this?

Polar Glacier

A ___ glacier occupies a bowl-shaped depression on a mountainside and typically serves as the source for a valley glacier

Cirque

A ___ glacier flows down valleys and are fed either from cirque glaciers or ice caps

Valley

An ___ covers a mountaintop completely and usually displays a radial-outward-flow pattern

Ice Cap

when a glacial valley is partly filled by an arm of the sea, the valley is called a ___ and the glacier is a ___ glacier

Fjord, Fjord

When a glacier flows all the way out of the mountains and onto the surrounding lowlands, it is called a ___ glacier

Piedmont

The presence of air in the pore spaces allows the delicate points of each snowflake to ___

Sublimate

As years go by, the snow gradually becomes denser and denser, until it is no longer penetrable by air and becomes ___

Glacier Ice

Addition of snow to a glacier is ___

Accumulation

A loss of snow from a glacier is ___

Ablation

Near the top, or ___, of the glacier is an Accumulation Zone where snows turns into glacier ice

Head

Near the end, or ___, of the glacier, more ice is rapidly lost to evaporation and melting than is replaced by snow

terminus

Glaciers move because of ___

The pull of gravity

The difference between accumulation and ablation is the measure of the glacier's ___

Mass Balance

Glaciers move in 2 ways, ___ and ___

Internal Flow and Basal Sliding

The weight of overlying snow and ice in a glacier increases, ice crystals are prone to more stress. Under this stress, ice crystals deep within the glacier undergo very slow movements called ___, along internal crystal planes

Creep

Glaciers pass over a change in slope and the surface ice cracks as the tension pulls it apart. When the crack opens up, this is called a ___, a deep, gaping fissure in the upper surface of a glacier.

CrevASSe

___ is when ice at the bottom of a glacier slides across its bed

Basal Sliding

A ___ is when a glacier goes wild and one part of the glacier begins to move rapidly downslope producing a chaos ;) of crevASSes and broken pinnacles

Surge

When basal sliding occurs, small fragments of rock embedded in the basal ice scrape away at the underlying bedrock and produce long, nearly parallel scratches called ___. While larger particles gouge out deeper ____

Glacial Striations, Glacial Grooves

Bowl-shaped ___ are found at the glaciers head

Cirque

Two cirques on opposite sides of a mountain can meet to form a sharp-crested ridge called an ___

Arete

Cirques developing on all sides of a mountain may carve its peak into a prominent ___

Horn

A ___ is a heterogeneous mixture of crushed rock, sand, pebbles, cobbles, and boulders deposited by a glacier

Till

The boulders, rock fragments, and other sediment carried by a glacier may be deposited along its margins or at its terminus, these form ridges called ___

Moraines

___ moraines form along the edges

Lateral

___ moraines form at the terminus

Terminal

___ moraines form as a glacier melts and recedes

Recessional

___ is a ridge or pile of debris that has been, or is being transported by a glacier

Moraine

A ___ moraine is formed when two lateral moraines converge and the lateral moraines get trapped between the glaciers forming a ridge of material that rides along the middle of the ice stream

Medial

If the glacier subsequently retreats, that sediment that is left behind in a raised bed is called an ___

Esker

The retreat of a glacier can leave behind a terrain full of pits and pockmarks from abandoned blocks of ice embedded in the glacial debris. When these melt, the depressions left behind are called ___

Kettles

Glacial till can sometimes include very large boulders. When they are different from the bedrock, such boulders are called ___

Erratics

Land areas that are near or adjacent to glaciers are referred to as ___

Periglacial

The most common type of periglacial landscape is ___, a treeless biome that experiences long winters and very short summers

Tundra

Tundra is usually underlain by a layer of ___

Permafrost

During the summer in the tundra, the ice in permafrost melts only in a thin layer near the surface called the ___

Active Layer

The freeze-thaw cycle produces characteristic geological formations called ___ and ___

Ice Wedges and Patterned Ground

Ground that is perennially below the freezing point of water

Permafrost