General Flashcards
How much of the surface of earth do mountains make up?
1/4
Endemic
Regularly occuring
Topography is influenced by…
Avalanches, landslides, earthquakes
Mt. Fugi is known for
Strenght and peace
Mt. Etna is known for…
being menacing and devalish
Elevation
distance between land surface and reference (ie sea)
Altitude
object not in contact with refrence (ie. a plane)
Height
how far something protrudes above land
Permafrost
permanently frozen ground
James Usher
Thought earth began 4000BC at 9am
Thomas Burnet
Went on grand tour and proposed that earth smooth at first and water below burst up splitting apart land because he saw lots of rubble in the alps (mundane egg theory). First to reject that earth always has looked same.
Georges Buffon
Proposed earth was much older than what Usher thought. Two schools of geology (catastrophism and uniformitarianism)
Catastrophism
field of thought that water/ice/fire engulf earth causing major catastrophic change
Unifomitarianism
school of thought that localized event shape earth and history can be observed by present surface and local events shape what it looks like today
Charles Lyell
Wrote principles of geology with uniformitarian view; Darwin used his book
Burgess Shale
In Yoho national park, fossil deposits in mountains around emerald lake have preserved soft tissue
Alfred Wegner
Proposed Pangea and movement of the continents (fossils, continent’s like a puzzle, climatic evidence)
What are some factors to consider when defining a mountain?
Individuality, elevation, local relief, geology, climate, slope
Lithosphere
Crust and upper mantel (plates); move 1-10cm/year because of mantel convection
asthenosphere
what lithosphere glides over
mantel
earths hot, malleable inner layer
Divergent Plate Boundaries
Plates pull apart and volcanic material fills void (ie mid Atlantic ridge, east African rift)
Convergent Plate Boundaries (Ocean)
Denser plate subducts below buoyant plate and volcanos erupt from margin (ie pacific ring of fire)
Convergent Plate Boundaries (Continental)
Result in seismically active mountain ranges (ie Himalayas)
Transform Margins
Plates grind in horizontal motion. Can sometimes make mountains (ie San Andres Fault, San Gabriel Mountains)
Where do volcanos form?
rift valley spreading centers, convergent boundaries, above intraplate hotspots (within tectonic plates)
Fault Block Mountains
Portions of crust drop and portions rise (ie teton range)
Dome mountains
Magma pushes up slowly without breaking through and then cools and hardens (ie West Butte in Sweetgrass Hills, Montana))
Solar Radiation
Highest at the equator or where latitude is similar to slope angle
Seasonality
How much temperature fluctuates; controlled by latitude (tilt of earth, revolution of earth around the sun, variation in solar radiation)
Atmospheric Circulation
cool air is more dense and is pulled down by gravity; differences in atmospheric pressure creates with which moves from areas of high to low pressure.
Intertropical Convergence Zone
Air flows from high latitudes to equator where the air is warm and therefore low pressure
Circulation Cells
3/ hemisphere; cold air moves towards equator and warm air moves higher up away from the equator. Influenced by rotation of earth
Coriolis effect
Earth deflects wind to right in north and left in south
Trade winds
wind that blows west to equator in Hadley cell near equator
Westerlies
blow west to east at mid lattitudes
easterlies
blow wind east to west towards equator at high latitudes
Mountain Mass Effect
large mountains grouped together can influence climate
Orographic precipitation
Mountains close to oceans force air up leading to increased clouds so the windward side has lots of precipitation and the leeward side has less rain.
Continetinality
mountains in costal areas receive more precipitation and continental mountains receive more temperature flux and less precipitation