Physical Geography 1 Flashcards
Erosion
The action of surface processes that removes soil, rock, or dissolved material from one location on the earth’s crust and then transports it to another location where it is deposited.
Palaeoclimatology
In certain areas around the world the same climate is present. This means that all these areas were once connected.
Palaeontology
In certain areas around the world fossils were found of the same animals. An explanation for this can be the fact that these areas used to be connected.
Divergence
Tectonic plates are moving away from each other. It happens to mid ocean ridges (Iceland) and rift valleys (east-Africa). The geological effects are light earthquakes and calm volcanism.
Convergence
Tectonic plates are moving towards each other.
Transform
Plates move alongside each other.
Weathering
Physical decomposition/ chemical change of rocks, soils, and minerals through contact with water.
Frost shattering
Water gets into a crack and due to the freezing water expanding, it stretches the rock.
Chemical weathering
Decomposition of a rock by changed chemical composition.
Limestone weathering
Acidic rain with calcium carbonate dissolves the limestone.
Biological weathering
A rock transforms as the result of a tree root which invades into the rock.
Soil
The soil concerns the loose material, the very upper part of the earth’s crust to a depth that is important to vegetation. It is a transition between atmosphere, lithosphere, biosphere, and hydrosphere.
Geogenesis
Origin of the geological genesis – stratification due to geological deposition.
Pedogenesis
The whole of processes of soil formation as regulated by the effects of place, environment, and history after the material has been deposited.
Land degration
Temporarily or permanent loss of productive capacity of land due to human action.
A natural or human-induced process that negatively affects the land to function effectively within an environmentally system (and can be defined as a process of degrading land from a former state).
Soil erosion
Action of the surface processes that removes soil from one location and then transports it to another location.
Catchment
Area of land in which water flowing across the surface drains into a particular stream or river. So, water from different sources goes into one stream or river.
Surface drainage
The movement of water horizontally beneath the land surface, usually when the soil is completely saturated.
Basal sliding
The act of a glacier sliding over the bed due to meltwater under the ice acting as a lubricant.
Fluvial landscape
It has a smooth, rounded terrain with a significant soil cover. There is a well-organized river network and catchments (stroomgebieden). Gullies, channels and (V-shaped) valleys grade into one another.
Glacial landscape
The landscape changes into a jagged, sharp terrain and the soil cover is removed (like the Baltic area). Breaches, breaks, and discontinuities in valley systems. Hanging valleys and u-shaped troughs.
Cirques
Armchair-shaped hollows cut into mountains.
Trunk glaciers
Cirque glaciers merge into trunk glaciers, erosion-downcutting appears.
Flutes
Linear sediment ridges which are tens of meters long, they are commonly seen near existing ice-margins. They have poor preservation potential.
Drumlins
Tend to occur in drumlin fields (“swarms of hundreds to thousands”) rather than individually. We don’t know how what the process is of becoming a drumlin.
Mega-Scale Glacial Lineation (MSGLs)
Linear, highly parallel ridge-groove system tens to hundreds of kilometers long and kilometers wide. They are believed to form under fast-flowing ice (for example ice streams) and record the flow directions.
