Chapter 13 Flashcards
What is a desert?
Any region with low rainfall. Usually less than 25 centimeters of rain per year.
What is rain shadow?
When a mountain causes a dessert on one side and an owasses on the other.
What are monoclines?
Step like folds or bends in rock layers.
What is a playa lake?
A shallow temporary lake on a flat valley floor in a dry region.
What is a playa
A very flat surface underlain by hard, mud-cracked clay.
What is a bajada?
A broad, gently sloping, depositional surface formed at the base of a mountain range in a dry region by the coalescing of individual alluvial fans.
What is a pediment?
A gently sloping erosional surface cut into the solid rock of a mountain range in a dry region; usually covered with a thin veneer of gravel.
What is a ventifacts?
Rocks with flat, wind-abraded surfaces.
What is deflation?
The removal of cla, silt, and sand particles from the land surface by wind.
What is a blowout?
A depression on the land surface caused by wind erosion.
What is Loess?
A fine grained deposit of wind blown dust.
What is a slip face?
The steep, downwind slope of a dune; formed from loose, cascading sand that generally keeps the slope at the angle of repose.
What is a barchan dune?
A crescent shaped dune with the horns of the crescent pointing downwind.
What is a transverse dune?
A relatively straight, elongate dune oriented perpendicular to the wind.
What is a parabolic dune?
A deeply curbed dune in a region of abundant sand. The horns point upwind and are often anchored by vegetation. The difference between this and a barchan dune is the vegetation.
