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)