Geographic Terms
The World in Spatial Terms
Earth and Its Spheres
Plate Movement
Water, Water Everywhere
100
A flat, low-lying land built up from soil carried downstream by a river and deposited at its mouth.
What is a delta?
100
The exact spot that a place is found on the earth.
What is absolute location.
100
Oceans, lakes, rivers, and other bodies of water.
What is the hydrosphere?
100
Molten rock.
What is magma?
100
The changing of liquid water into vapor or gas.
What is evaporation?
200
A drawing of the earth shown on a flat surface.
What is a map?
200
The location of a place in relation to other places.
What is relative location?
200
Ocean basins, land, earth's crust.
What is the lithosphere?
200
The term scientists use to describe the activities of continental drift and magma flow which create many of the Earth's physical features.
What is plate tectonics?
200
A process where excess water vapor changes into liquid water.
What is condensation?
300
A land area, smaller than a continent, completely surrounded by water.
What is an island?
300
A particular space with physical and human meaning.
What is place?
300
The air we breathe, layers of gases extending about 6,000 miles above the earth's surface.
What is the atmosphere?
300
Cracks in the earth's crust caused by plates gliding or sliding past each other.
What are faults?
300
Rain, sleet, or snow caused when clouds gather more water than they can hold.
What is precipitation?
400
A narrow stretch of water joining two larger bodies of water.
What is a straight?
400
Places united by specific characteristics.
What are regions?
400
The part of the earth that supports life.
What is the biosphere?
400
A process where the heavier sea plate dives beneath the lighter continental plate.
What is subduction?
400
An underground porous rock layer often saturated with water in the form of streams.
What is an aquifer?
500
The changes in elevation over a given area of land.
What is relief?
500
A community of plants and animals that depend upon one another, and their surroundings, for survival.
What is an ecosystem?
500
The natural features of the earth's surface.
What are landforms?
500
Process where pieces of the earth's crust come together slowly as the sea plate slides under the continental plate.
What is accretion?
500
Turning ocean water into freshwater by removing the salt.
What is desalination?
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