Geomorphological Processes

Question 1

What is weathering?

Answer 1

The breakdown of disintegration of rock in situ (the original place) at or close to the ground surface.

Question 2

What is chemical weathering?

Answer 2

Involves the chemical reaction of water, atmosphere gases, and biologically produced chemicals with rocks and soils.

Question 3

What are the examples of chemical weathering?

Answer 3

Solution, oxidation, carbonation.

Question 4

What is biological weathering?

Answer 4

The effect that living organisms, such as plants and animals, have on rocks and other inanimate objects.

Question 5

What is mechanical weathering?

Answer 5

The breaking down of rocks where they are located, caused by rainwater, temperature extreames and biological processes.

Question 6

What are some examples of mechanical weathering?

Answer 6

Freeze thaw, wetting + drying, salt crystallisation.

Question 7

What is mass movement?

Answer 7

Generally either rapid sudden failures of the slope or the effects of processes that develop over time.

Question 8

What are the 5 main types of mass movement?

Answer 8

Landslides. rockfalls, mudflows, soil creep, slumping.

Question 9

What is hydraulic action?

Answer 9

When air and water gets into cracks and expands them.

Question 10

What is attrition?

Answer 10

Rocks colliding with each other becoming smaller and more rounded.

Question 11

What is corrasion?

Answer 11

Rocks hitting the cliff and chipping it away.

Question 12

What is corrosion?

Answer 12

Acidic water which dissolves the rock.

Question 13

What is wave quarrying?

Answer 13

The energy of a wave as it breaks against a cliff is enough to detach a bit of rock.

Question 14

What is cavitation?

Answer 14

As waves recede the compressed air expands violently, exerting pressure on the rocks and causing pieces to break off.

Question 15

What is traction?

Answer 15

The rolling of coarse sediment along the sea bed that is too heavy to be picked up, and carried by the sea.

Question 16

What is suspension?

Answer 16

Smaller (lighter) sediment is picked up and carried within the flow of water.

Question 17

What is saltation?

Answer 17

Sediment bounced along the sea bd, light enough to be picked up or destroyed but too heavy to remain within the flow of water.

Question 18

What is deposition?

Answer 18

When waves no longer have enough energy to transport sediment.

Question 19

What are high-energy environments?

Answer 19

Clay and sand are easily transported away, leaving behind larger pebbles to form shingle beaches.

Question 20

What are low-energy environments?

Answer 20

The smallest clay particles will eventually drop to the seabed to form mudflats.

Question 21

What is marme deposition?

Answer 21

Sediment deposited by the sea.

Question 22

What is aeolian deposition?

Answer 22

Sediment deposited by the wind.

Question 23

What is a berm?

Answer 23

A ridge of deposited material found at the high tide mark.

Question 24

What is a cusp?

Answer 24

A semi-circular shaped depositional feature found at the coast.

Question 25

What is a runnel?

Answer 25

A ripple of deposited material found in the sand formed when waves spread out across a wide sandy beach, they are parallel to the shoreline.

Question 26

What is beach accretion?

Answer 26

It will take place during a prolonged period of constructive waves driven by storms many of hundreds of miles away.

Question 27

What is a swash aligned beach?

Answer 27

Tend to form in low-energy environments such as bays that are affected by waves arriving roughly parallel to the shore. High energy waves will transport sand, leaving behind coarser shingles where as low energy waves will deposit sand or mud.

Question 28

What is a drift aligned beach?

Answer 28

Form where the waves approach the coast at an angle (longshore drift). Finer shingle particles are likely to be carried further by longshore drift and also to become increasingly rounded as they move.