Chapter 2 - Changes to Earth's Surface

Question 1

What is a landform?

Answer 1

a natural land shape or feature

Question 2

What is topography?

Answer 2

all kinds of landforms in a certain area (write about or describe a place)

Question 3

What is a mountain?

Answer 3

a landform that is much higher than the surrounding land; they occur in groups called ranges. Volcanos usually occur as individual mountains, not ranges.

Question 4

What are hills?

Answer 4

landforms like mountains, but not as high. Most have rounded slopes.

Question 5

What are plains?

Answer 5

a large, flat landform with little relief (relief is the difference in elevation between high and low places)

Question 6

What are hills?

Answer 6

are landforms that are like mountains, but not as high

Question 7

What is a glacier?

Answer 7

a large, thick sheet of ice. When they move , they change the land around and beneath them.

Question 8

What is a sand dune?

Answer 8

a sand hill that is made and shaped by wind; as wind blows over a dune, the sand moves. This can change the dune’s shape or even move the while dune.

Question 9

What is a mesa?

Answer 9

tall, flat-topped rock

Question 10

What are canyons?

Answer 10

deep valleys with steep sides

Question 11

What are moraines?

Answer 11

long, low hills formed by materials carried by a glacier.

Question 12

How can you tell a moraine from an ordinary hill?

Answer 12

a moraine contains rocks, sand and clay

Question 13

What are glacial grooves?

Answer 13

a glacier scrapes and scratches the rock beneath it; as the glacier melts, grooves can be seen in the rock

Question 14

What is weathering?

Answer 14

wearing away rocks by natural means

Question 15

What is erosion?

Answer 15

the process of wearing away and removing sediment by wind, water, or ice

Question 16

What is deposition?

Answer 16

the process by which sediment drops out of water

Question 17

What is a delta?

Answer 17

an area of new land at the mouth of a river

Question 18

How does a sinkhole change land?

Answer 18

a cave near the surface causes the land to open up

Question 19

What causes changes to earth’s landforms?

Answer 19

wind, moving water, erosion and deposition, sinkholes, landslides, ice, plants

Question 20

What are earth’s 4 layers?

Answer 20

Inner core (iron & nickel), Outer core (hot, liquid iron), Mantle (mostly solid rock) and crust (surface)

Question 21

What are plates?

Answer 21

blocks of crust and upper mantle rock that fit together like puzzle pieces

Question 22

What is an earthquake?
What causes an earthquake?
Where do earthquakes occur?
What is used to measure an earthquake?

Answer 22

Movement of the ground caused by a sudden release of energy in Earth’s crust.

Plates pushing together, sliding apart, or pulling apart all produce earthquakes.

They occur along a fault, or break in earth’s crust

A Richter scale measures an earthquakes magnitude (2.0 small; 6.0 can cause a lot of damage)

Question 23

What is an epicenter?

Answer 23

the point on Earth’s surface directly above the focus (the focus is where the energy is released during an earthquake)

Question 24

What is magma?

Answer 24

melted or molten rock beneath Earth’s surface

Question 25

What is lava?

Answer 25

molten rock that reaches Earth’s surface

Question 26

What is a volcano?

Answer 26

a mountain made of lava, ash, or other materials from eruptions

Question 27

What are three types of volcanos?

Answer 27

Composite - wide with fairly steep slopes (Mt St Helens)

Shield Volcanos - broad volcanos with gently slopes( Hawaii)

Cinder Cone Volcanos - tall and narrow with steep slpes (Mexico)