UK Physical Flashcards
Hydraulic Action
Process of erosion of riverbeds by the force of moving water. Water compresses air intro cracks -> pressure builds up, forcing prices of rock to break off.
Attrition
Process where rocks and pebbles are carried by river, colliding and breaking into smaller pieces.
Corrosion
Soluble materials in the riverbank/bed dissolved in the water, ideally rocks that contain calcium carbonate like limestone or chalk.
Abrasion
Materials like sand or pebbles are carried by the river, scraping against the riverbed, wearing them away
Traction - transportation process
Large boulders/rocks that are rolled along the riverbed by high force of water.
Saltation - transportation process
Smaller pebbles/stones bouncing along the riverbed in short jumps. Happens when waters energy is not strong enough to keep particles in continuous suspension.
Suspension - transportation in river processes
Fine, lighter materials such as clay are suspended in the water, like floating in the water. Happens in slower rivers.
Clay
Flat, very porous but not permeable
Chalk
Hilly, porous and permeable
Divergent
Moves away
Convergent
Moves together
Conservative
Side by side
Percolation
Process of liquid slowly passing through a filter, not lols clay because clay absorbs water after time and doesn’t come out.
Infiltration
Process of water moving through rock and soil layers to be stored as groundwater
Continental collision
At collision boundaries, rock folds upwards. Heart and pressure will transform some sedimentary rock to metamorphic. Some sedimentary rock will melt into magma, and then cool into igneous rock.
What happens if water can’t come of out clay hills
Water gets night and find lower ground, finds a gap and makes a spring to release all that water
Constructive waves
Summer - brings things to the beach
Destructive waves
Winter - brings things away from the beach
Metamorphic rock
Dense, hard rocks, resistant to erosion, formed of crystals, changed by heat or pressure
Schist, slate
The rock cycle
Igneous rock weathers and erodes into sedimentary rocks. These form compacted cemented sediments (limestone). If put under heat or pressure (buried beneath earths surface) they form metamorphic rock. If it gets pushed deeper to the earths crust, it will melt due to extreme heat to form magma, then cools to form igneous rock.
Upland ‘west’ UK
Volcanic activity created metamorphic rocks
More snow
Harder to build infrastructure
Colder - when air rises, it expands and cools
Highs precipitation from prevailing wind (relief rainfall)
Cooling magma creates igneous rock (mostly underground)
Crystalline (magma cools slowly), so rocks are hard and are more resistant to erosion
Lowland ‘east’ UK
Sedimentary rock
Less resistant - river runoff erodes the rock
Drier - sheltered by the mountains in the West
Warmer
Less weather disruption
Flatter land - more profitable for settlement/trade
