Unit 4 Flashcards
The hydrosphere
1
Q
how is the water molecule bonded?
A
it is covalently bonded which means electrons are shared. The bonds between the molecules results in high surface tension
2
Q
What is a drainage basin?
A
two hills or mountains and between them runs a lake or stream, all the precipitation falls between these valleys
3
Q
What are tributaries?
A
a stream that feeds inro a large river or lake
4
Q
What is erosion?
A
the geological process in which earth materials are worn away and transported by natural forces such as wind and water, The surface of the earth gets worn down
5
Q
Dendritic drainage pattern
A
branches like a tree, very common. develops where rock has no structure and is easily eroded
6
Q
Trellis drainage pattern
A
generated due to underlying bedrock differential resistance to weathering - associated with folded or faulted sedimentary rocks
7
Q
rectangular drainage pattern
A
Generated die to faulted underlying bedrock, low gradient areas (little topography)
8
Q
Deranged drainage pattern
A
found in areas with disrupted surface patterns, very chaotic patterns
9
Q
Radial drainage patterns
A
formed around isolated mountains
10
Q
What is the fluvial gradient?
A
the drop in elevation per unit distance
11
Q
What is base level?
A
The lower limit of erosion process (stream has no energy to erode the surface) all streams erode to larger bodies of water
12
Q
what is local base level
A
The lowest level of elevation where stream gets water gets stuck for a period of time
13
Q
Ultimate base level?
A
the ocean all stream lead will eventually flow into the ocean
14
Q
What is a graded stream?
A
a stream that has eroded the bottom of the stream so that its smooth this can be reversed by tectonic uplift or a change in base level
15
Q
What is the cycle of erosion
A
youthful stage (stream erodes quickly v-shaped valleys, ungraded streams). Mature stage (streams erode wider broader valleys, deposit thick layers of sediment, gradients slowly reduced). Old stage (streams surrounded by rolling hills (Low gradient) occur wide sediment- filled valleys , gradients are slowly reduced)
16
Q
Why is stream velocity not uniform?
A
slowest near the edges and bottom, fastest near the surface and middle depending on shape
17
Q
stream velocity in curved streams
A
water flows fastest on the outside curve, slower flow in the inside of the curve
18
Q
How can particles be transported?
A
traction transport (bed load) , salation (Bed load), suspension, solution
19
Q
What is bed load?
A
large particles that rest on the stream basem only moved during rapid flow, moved through traction and saltation
20
Q
Traction transport?
A
sediment pushed along by force of water flow , large particles move slower
21
Q
saltation transport
A
bouncing of sediment along stream bed
22
Q
suspension transportation?
A
sedimentation held in the water, typically small, higher velocity required for larger particles
23
Q
Solution transportation?
A
dissolved ion in the water
24
Q
Braided rivers
A
develope when there is more sediment than a stream can carry, Many of interconnecting channels separated by small temporary islands
25
Meandering stream?
Develop in low gradient areas, one long stream that curves a lot
26
Point bar vs Cut bank in meandering streams
point bar (sediment accumulates on the inside of the bend)
27
Oxbow lake?
u shaped lake that eventually cuts off into one line
28
Deltas
The point where a stream enters a body of water
29
What is groundwater?
The water found underground and cracks and spaces in soil, sand, and rocks
30
What are Aquapher?
Aquifer our units of porous rock or sediment saturated with groundwater. It’s made from materials with high porosity and permeability. This is where earth groundwater is stored.
31
What is porosity (pore space)?
Percentage of open space within a sediment or rock
32
What is permeability?
Describes how pores and pore spaces are shaped and interconnected
33
What does larger pores mean?
Less friction between water and the sides of the pores, straighter flow paths and more permeability
34
What does immobile water mean?
Basically, it’s just stuck water
35
What are Aquapher?
Unit of porous rock or sediment saturated with groundwater that has sufficient permeability to allow water to flow through it. They are made out of materials with high porosity and permeability.
36
What is the unsaturated zone?
The poor space is not fully saturated with water. There is air between the pores.
37
What is a water table?
The boundary between unsaturated ground above, and fully saturated ground below
38
What is primary porosity?
Porosity presented in spaces between individual sediment grains
39
What is secondary porosity?
Porosity that has developed after a rock is formed like fractured rocks
40
What is an acquitard?
This is sediment or rocky body that does not allow the flow of a significant amount of H2O. It’s made from materials with low permeability
41
What is an aquiclude?
Sediment or rock body, that does not allow any flow of H2O and impermeable unit
42
What is an unconfined aquifer?
Aquifer exposed to the ground surface, no low permeability barrier between the aquifer and ground surface. The top boundary is the water table.
43
What is a confined aquifer?
Aquifer has low permeability layer between it, and the water table above
44
What is the confining layer?
The aqua tired or low permeability layer that separates the water table from the aquifer below
45
What is infiltration?
Water from precipitation that infiltrates (penetrates) the ground surface. Stored in the unsaturated zone.
46
How does water flow from recharge to discharge areas?
It’s driven by gravitational forces as well as water travels from high pressure to low pressure. This is called the hydraulic head.
47
What are springs?
A point where groundwater flows naturally to the surface
48
Why do whales have to be drilled deeper than the existing water table?
Because the water table fluctuates overtime, and as the water is pumped, the surrounding water table will drop
49
What is an artesian well?
Water that rises above an aquifer
50
What is karst?
Irregular topography, created by the dissolution of limestone bedrock by flowing groundwater
51
What are the five oceans?
Atlantic ocean, Pacific Ocean, Indian Ocean, arctic ocean, southern ocean
52
What is the maximum depth in the ocean?
11 K M, in the Mariana trench
53
What is the littoral zone?
The shore part of the ocean it’s affected by ties (intertidal zone)
54
Neritic zone?
From the low tide, Mark to the edge of the continental shelf
55
Oceanic zone
From zone beyond the shelf
56
Pelagic zone?
The body of water from just above the ocean floor to the surface
57
Benthic zone
The ocean floor sediments
58
Photic zone
Depth through which light penetrates
59
Aphotic zone
Water depth where sunlight does not reach
60
Why are ocean salty?
What are supplied to the ocean from rivers of land, these rivers contain dissolved ions. The water leaves through evaporation with no dissolved island. This is what causes the ocean become salty. The reason it doesn’t become over salty is because of salt deposits.
61
How does the ocean temperature change with water depth
Temperature decreases with depth. This is also called the thermocline.
62
How does ocean salinity vary with water depth?
Salinity increases with depth, this is called the halocline
63
How does water density change with depth?
What are density increases? This is called PYCNOCLINE
64
What are deep current driven by?
Density differences which are caused by salinity and temperature changes along with thermohaline currents
65
What drives surface current?
Surface wind caused by the chore, Alicis effect 
66
What is the tidal cycle?
Flows from high tide to low tide as the moon pulls the tidal bulge
67
What is the tidal period?
The time between two high tides
68
What is title range?
The difference in height between high tide and low tide largest during spring tides
69
What is diurnal tide?
One high tide and one low tide per day only one complete title cycle each day
70
What is semi diurnal tide?
Too high tide and low tides per day to complete tidal cycles each day
71
What is wave size affected by?
The strength of the wind, the length of time the wind blows for the size of the area the wind blows over
72
What is fetch?
When wind blows over a body of water with no obstruction in the same direction often causing winds
73
What is the crest?
The highest surface part of a wave
74
What is a trough?
The lowest surface part of a wave
75
What is wavelength?
The horizontal distance between two crests or two troughs
76
What are wave orbitals?
Circular motion, propagates, downwards, losing energy each time
77
What is wave base?
The maximum debt at which waters wave movement causes significant water motion
78
What is longshore current?
Waves approach the shore at an angle it pushes water parallel to the shoreline, this creates swash and backwash. (Swash going towards the shore, and backwash coming to the ocean
79
What is longshore drift?
The erosion and transportation of sediment along a coastal parallel to the shoreline. This is the result of swash and backwash.
80
What are rip currents?
Localized currents that flow perpendicular to the shoreline towards the ocean, fed by long shore currents
81
What are terrigenous sediments?
They are derived from land, and they distributed within the ocean by ocean currents. They include things like sand, silt, and clay. Corser grain cinnamons are deposited closer to shore, whereas small particles travel further into the ocean.
82
How do beaches form?
An accumulation of sediment it’s a narrow strip of land separating the ocean from inland areas
83
How do spits form
They developed from an accumulation of sediment provided by longshore drift, and there’s a narrow strip of sediment that extends into water in the direction of longshore current
84
How do barrier bars exist?
They develop when an accumulation of sediment provided by longshore drift, cuts off a sheltered area, like a bay. Create a narrow strip of sediment that extends into open water in the direction of long shore current, and creates a lagoon where the sheltered water is.
85
What is pelagic ooze?
Composed of microscopic, silicas and carbonate shells derived from marine organisms
86
What is the carbonaceous ooze?
Carbonate sediment, derived from marine organisms
87
What is submergence?
This is the drowning of the land with ocean water
88
What does emergence
This is the exposure of land once below water
89
What does global sea level change relate to
Changing volume of global glacier ice
90
What does global sea level change relate to
Changes to the shape of the seafloor caused by plate tectonic process
91
What are isostatic sea level changes due to
They caused by the subsidence or uplift of the earths crust, caused by the changes to the amount of ice on land, and or growth or erosion of mountains
92
What is tectonic sea level change?
Caused by tectonic processes, areas of tectonic, uplift, cause an apparent drop in local, sea level sea level doesn’t actually change, but appears to be lower because the land surface has lifted
93
What is a glacier?
A long lasting body of ice greater than 10 years that is large enough to move under its own weight
94
What is the cryosphere?
The portion of earth surface water that is in solid form. This includes sea ice, glaciers, snow, and Perma frost. It plays an important role in feedback, cycles and influences cloud, formation, and precipitation.
95
How does a glacier form?
Snow accumulates strain winter that does not melt in summer, unmelted snow layer from each year compacted from the overlying weight snowflakes turn into ice granules individual ice granules, continue to undergo compaction and turn into firn (granular snow that is not been compressed into ice) more compaction leads to the elimination of remaining air between individual ice granules. The granules are now welded together.
96
Plastic lower ice
Flows like viscous fluid, can flow over topography and around bends without breaking
97
Ridged upper ice
Is brittle and cannot flow will break upon movement will also crack at locations were plastic ice below flexes this leads to the formation of surface crevices
98
Ice flow at base of glacier if base is cold
Base of glacier is frozen to the rock below, All ice movement is from internal flow base moves very slowly, if at all
99
Ice flow at base of glacier if base is warm
Base of glacier is detached from the rock surface, a thin layer of liquid between the ground surface, and the glacier, bass slides over top of the ground surface. This is called basal sliding
100
How do you get a warm glacier base?
Ice axe as an insulator, which can trap heat heat, also radiates upwards from the earth surface. If the ice is thick, he is trapped in the basement melts. If the ice is thin, heat escapes, and the base remains frozen.
101
How does a glacier flow?
Sides of glacier are more affected by friction than center, so it moves in an arrow shape almost
102
What is ablation?
Processes that reduce a glaciers mass, which includes melting and calving which is shedding of iceberg into water
103
What are Alpine glaciers?
Originate on mountains in temperate and polar regions they can form in little latitudes if the elevation is high enough flow is controlled by topography
104
What are continental glaciers?
Cover vast areas of land in polar regions
105
How do continental glaciers move?
form on large generally flat areas of land (no slope to help them flow)
106
Abrasion
As a glacier flows it drags rock, sediment, and debris along its basal surface
107
Plucking
Bits of underlying rock picked up by flowing glacier
108
What causes U shaped valleys?
Valleys carved into U shapes by glacier erosion, glaciers erode more along their base than side
109
Glacial Sediments
Glacier flow is laminar, it doesn't sort the sediment it picks up.
110
Glacier Till
The unsorted sediment deposited by a glacier, reservoirs for ground water
111
Formation of a glacial sediment
Glaciers erode and transport rock as they flow, the debris and sediment is transported on top of the ice, within the ice,
112
Sub-glacial
below the ice
113
Supra-glacial
on top of the ice
114
en-glacial
within the ice
115
Terminal Moraine
marks the furthest advance of a glacier
116
Recessional moraine
Marks the retreat of a glacier (The new end)
117
Glacial Moraines
accumulation of till at the edge of a glacier
118
lateral Moraines
form along the sides of glaciers
119
Medial Moraine
When two adjacent glaciers merge lateral moraines
120
Eskers?
linear accumulations of till parallel to a glaciers movement, form from deposition of a sediment from river flowing beneath a glacier, subglacial
121
Drumlins
accumulations of till in tear drop shapes parallel to a glaciers movement
122
Erratics
glacially deposited rock differing from the bedrock of the area - transported on or within the ice
123
Kettle Lakes
Lakes formed from the melting of remnant glacial ice blocks
