Weathering and Rivers Flashcards
What is Igneous rock?
Rock formed from Magma, e.g. Granite or Basalt.
What is Segmentary rock?
Rock formed from particles of other rocks or dead sea creatures, e.g. Chalk.
What is Metamorphic rock?
Rock formed from other rocks under extreme heat or pressure, e.g. Marble.
What is Weathering?
The breakdown of rocks by elements of the weather, animals and plants without movement.
What is Erosion?
The wearing away of the earth’s surface by agents of erosion.
What is Physical Weathering?
The disintegration of rocks into smaller parts through weathering processes.
What is Freeze - Thaw action?
Repeated temperature changes above freezing leads to the freezing and expansion of water in cracks It’s thawing eventually shattering rocks (to produce Scree).
What is Onion Skin Weathering?
Hearing and cooling in hot climates leads to expansion and contraction of outer layers of rocks, leading to these layers peeling off.
What is Chemical Weathering?
Rocks dissolving or having a chemical change in the composition.
What is Acid Rain?
Carbon dioxide from natural and human sources in the atmosphere makes precipitation acidic and this dissolves certain rocks (limestone) in warm, most conditions.
What is Biological Weathering?
The action of plants (roots, seeds growing in cracks) and animals (burrowing) in breaking down rocks.
What is Transportation?
The removal of weathered or eroded material (load) by an agent of erosion such as a river.
What is Deposition?
When load is dropped by an agent of erosion.
What is the Hydraulic Cycle?
The constant recycling and changing of state of water in the atmosphere, seas, in and on the ground.
What is Evaporation?
When heat changes water liquid (from seas, rivers, mattresses etc.) into water vapour (gas) in the atmosphere.
What is Transpiration?
The lots of water liquid from vegetation due to heat turning into water vapour.
What is Condensation?
The cooling of water vapour into liquid.
What is Precipitation?
Any form of water falling from the sky, e.g. rain, snow, hail etc.).
What is Infiltration?
Water entering the ground soaking into the soil.
What is Percolation?
Water moving deep down through the soil into the rocks.
What is Throughflow?
Water travelling downhill through the soil layer.
What is the Water Table?
The you level of groundwater, beneath this level the rock is saturated.
What is Groundwater?
Water held deep in the rock of an area.
What is Surface Runoff?
Water that remains in the surface and travels in rivers, stems etc..
What is a Drainage Basin?
An area of land drained by a river and its tributaries, someone’s called a catchment area.
What is Watershed?
High ground that surrounds the drainage basin and separates basins
What is a Source?
The point from which a river starts flowing, e.g. spring, marsh.
What is a Confluence?
Where to rivers meet.
What is a Mouth?
Where a river ends and enters a sea or lake.
What is a Tributary?
Small feeder streams or rivers that feed into large streams.
What is the Upper Course?
Where rivers start from the source and flow through V-shaped valleys in between interlocking spurs in highland areas, steeper gradients and erosion.
What is the Middle Course?
Where a river flows in a wider valley with flood plains and begins to meander as the gradient flattens.
