Erosion Flashcards
The process by which wind, water, ice, or gravity transport soil and sediment from one location to another.
Erosion
The process by which rock materials are broken down by the action of physical and chemical processes.
Weathering
The continuous movement of water from the ocean to the atmosphere to the land and back to the ocean.
Water Cycle
The process that changes liquid water to gaseous water.
Evaporation
The process by which water vapor in the air is changed into liquid water.
Condensation
Water released from clouds in the form of rain, freezing rain, sleet, snow, or hail.
Precipitation
Water “running off” the land surface.
Surface runoff
A stream that flows into a lake or into a larger stream.
Tributary
The area of land that is drained by a water system.
Watershed
A boundary that separates a continent’s river systems.
Continental divide
The process in which material is laid down.
Deposition
A fan-shaped mass of material deposited at the mouth of a stream.
Delta
An area along a river that forms from sediments deposited when the river overflows its banks.
Floodplain
The upper surface of underground water; the upper boundary of the zone of saturation.
Water table
A facility that cleans the waste materials found in the water that comes from sewers or drains.
Sewage treatment plants
A tank that separates solid waste from liquids and that has bacteria that break down the solid waste.
Septic tank
A large stack of rock in the sea that looks like a tall stone tower, separated from the main shoreline.
Sea stacks
Develops when a headland protruding into the ocean causes waves to refract around it.
Sea arches
Formed primarily from erosion caused by waves.
Sea caves
A gently sloping coastal feature at the seaward or lake ward edge of a wave-cut platform, constructed by sediment brought by rivers or drifted along the shore or across the platform and deposited in the deeper water beyond.
Wave-cut terraces
A coastal land form, a point of land usually high and often with a sheer drop, that extends into a body of water.
Headlands
An area of the shoreline made up of material deposited by waves.
Beach
A large mass of moving ice.
Glacier
The rock material carried and deposited by glaciers.
Glacial drift
unsorted rock material that is deposited directly by a melting glacier.
Till
A glacier deposit that has been sorted and layered by the action of streams or melt water.
Stratified drift
