Topic 1: Hadardous Earth✅ Flashcards
What is warm air?
Low pressure
What is cold dry air?
High pressure
What are 3 natural factors that have caused climate change?
Asteroids
Volcanos
Orbital
What is the correct structure of the earth from outwards in?
Crust
Mantle
Outer core
Inner core
Which layer of earth is found beneath the crust?
Mantle
What is the asthenosphere?
The upper mantle
Below the crust and below the lithosphere.
(Middle mantle)
What is the lithosphere?
The CRUST both oceanic and continental
Which type of crust is heaviest?
Oceanic
Which crust is thicker continental or oceanic?
Continental
What is the lithosphere broken down into?
Tectonic plates
What tracks how plates move and behave?
GPS
What is magma called above the surface?
Lava
What does viscous mean?
How thick and sticky something is
What is a ridge push?
Gravity force that causes the plate into a subduction zone. It works with the slab pull. Weaker than the slab pull.
Where do convection currents happen?
In the mantle
What do convection currents cause?
Movement in the plates due to the rise and fall of rock in the asthenosphere
What is slab pull
Is the strongest force causing subduction
How are hurricanes categorised?
Wind speed
What magnitude was hurricane Catarina?
5
What is a plate margin?
Where two tectonic plates meet.
What are the types of plate boundaries?
Divergent, convergent and conservative.
What happens at a conservative plate margin?
Two plates slide past each other
Causes earthquakes and tsunamis
What happens at a convergent plate margin?
Both Continental plates
Two continental plates move towards each other.
Mountains are formed
What happens at a divergent plate margin?
Two plates move away from each other
Causes a new crust as magma rises and forms underwater mountains
What plate margin are rift valleys associated with?
Divergent
What is a good example of a rift valley?
The great rift valley in East Africa
Which type of plate margin has a subduction zone?
Convergent
Oceanic and continental
What plate margin are shield volcanos associated with?
Divergent
What plate margin causes fold mountains?
Convergent
Continental and continental
What is a subduction zone?
The area where the oceanic plate is pushed under a continental plate.
(Convergent)
Can volcanos and earthquakes occur at convergent plate margins?
Yes
Composite volcanos
What volcano is found along convergent plate boundaries?
Composite
What causes plates in conservative boundaries to get stuck?
Friction
What is liquefaction?
soil mostly loses strength and stiffness in response to stress such as shaking during an earthquake. The material that is ordinarily a solid behaves like a liquid.
Is the San andreas fault along a conservative plate margin?
Yes
Why do volcanos occur in convergent plate margins?
In subduction magma rises through cracks in the bedrock called vents.
Why do volcanos occur at hotspots?
A plume of hot mama rises from the mantle to the surface, causing large flow of heat from the mantle to the crust. Magma becomes lava.
Characteristics of composite volcanos:
They erupt andesitic lava which has high silica content.
Lava can not flow very far
Very violent but NOT frequent
Eruptions are explosive
Shield volcanos
Not very explosive
They erupt basaltic lava low silica level: it is runny spreads over a large area
No larva bombs
What is large scale movement of air?
Wind
What are trade winds?
Surface winds that blow from 30 degrees north and south of the equator.
The winds blow back to the equator
In the southern he hemisphere, trade winds will blow from _______ to _________ until the reach the equator.
South east
North west
In the northern he hemisphere, trade winds will blow from _______ to _________ until the reach the equator.
North east
South west
What are westerlies?
Wind that blow from 30 degrees north and south to the POLES.
In the southern he hemisphere, westerlies will blow from _______ to _________ until the reach the south pole.
North west
South east
In the northern hemisphere, westerlies will blow from _______ to _________ until the reach the north pole.
South west
North east
What are two types of surface winds?
Trade winds (to the equator)
Westerlies (to the poles)
Properties of winds:
- Caused by differences in air pressure.
- Large scale air movements.
- Move from high pressure areas to low pressure areas.
At what degree does air cool and sink north and south of the equator?
30 degrees(they move as surface winds)
What does raising hot air form?
Rising hot air forms a low-pressure belt
High pressure!
When air cools and falls, this results in a high pressure belt with no clouds and minimal rainfall.
What happens at 60 degrees north and south?
cold air blown from the poles meets warm air surface winds. Because the warmer air is less dense, it rises and forms a low-pressure belt.
The air splits, with some returning back towards the equator and the rest heading to the poles.
What happens to air at the poles?
The high pressure belt will move back to the equator as surface winds.
A low pressure belt?
- raising air
- clouds
- rain
Usually the equator and between 50° and 70° latitude.(north and south CHECK
Examples of low pressure in the northern hemisphere:
Aleutian low and the Icelandic low.
What are deep ocean currents caused by?
Deep ocean currents are caused by differences in water density.
(Thermohaline circulation)
Water freezing in polar regions causes the surrounding water to become saltier and therefore denser.
The sinking of this dense water lets warm water flow in near the surface. This warm water will then cool and sink.
How is warm water is transferred to Western Europe from the Caribbean?
The gulf stream
What is the name of the circulation system that causes deep ocean currents?
Thermohaline circulation
Surface currents transfer heat ______ the equator
Away from (shallower)
How is a low pressure belt formed from the Hadley cell?
Air rises where the Hadley cells from each hemisphere meet. This creates a belt of low pressure.