Physical Geography 1

Question 1

Erosion

Answer 1

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.

Question 2

Palaeoclimatology

Answer 2

In certain areas around the world the same climate is present. This means that all these areas were once connected.

Question 3

Palaeontology

Answer 3

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.

Question 4

Divergence

Answer 4

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.

Question 5

Convergence

Answer 5

Tectonic plates are moving towards each other.

Question 6

Transform

Answer 6

Plates move alongside each other.

Question 7

Weathering

Answer 7

Physical decomposition/ chemical change of rocks, soils, and minerals through contact with water.

Question 8

Frost shattering

Answer 8

Water gets into a crack and due to the freezing water expanding, it stretches the rock.

Question 9

Chemical weathering

Answer 9

Decomposition of a rock by changed chemical composition.

Question 10

Limestone weathering

Answer 10

Acidic rain with calcium carbonate dissolves the limestone.

Question 11

Biological weathering

Answer 11

A rock transforms as the result of a tree root which invades into the rock.

Question 12

Soil

Answer 12

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.

Question 13

Geogenesis

Answer 13

Origin of the geological genesis – stratification due to geological deposition.

Question 14

Pedogenesis

Answer 14

The whole of processes of soil formation as regulated by the effects of place, environment, and history after the material has been deposited.

Question 15

Land degration

Answer 15

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).

Question 16

Soil erosion

Answer 16

Action of the surface processes that removes soil from one location and then transports it to another location.

Question 17

Catchment

Answer 17

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.

Question 18

Surface drainage

Answer 18

The movement of water horizontally beneath the land surface, usually when the soil is completely saturated.

Question 19

Basal sliding

Answer 19

The act of a glacier sliding over the bed due to meltwater under the ice acting as a lubricant.

Question 20

Fluvial landscape

Answer 20

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.

Question 21

Glacial landscape

Answer 21

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.

Question 22

Cirques

Answer 22

Armchair-shaped hollows cut into mountains.

Question 23

Trunk glaciers

Answer 23

Cirque glaciers merge into trunk glaciers, erosion-downcutting appears.

Question 24

Flutes

Answer 24

Linear sediment ridges which are tens of meters long, they are commonly seen near existing ice-margins. They have poor preservation potential.

Question 25

Drumlins

Answer 25

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.

Question 26

Mega-Scale Glacial Lineation (MSGLs)

Answer 26

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.