Landforms
Rivers both flow through and form this geomorphic feature.
What is a valley?
The building block of rocks, a solid substance with specific chemical composition and characteristic crystalline structure.
What is a mineral?
A mass movement of rock and earth down-slope.
What is a landslide?
The general term for a naturally occurring process that has negative effect on humans.
What is a natural hazard?
The source of energy for Earth's weather and climate.
What is solar energy?
A flat area of land adjacent to a river that often floods and contains fertile soil
What is a floodplain?
This is the thinnest layer of solid Earth at only 5-100 km thick.
What is the crust?
The process of alteration and breakdown of rocks and/or soils, often into smaller pieces.
What is weathering?
A flat area of land adjacent to a river that often floods and contains fertile soil
What is a floodplain?
Thick masses of ice that flow downhill under their own weight.
What are glaciers?
A hill deposited at the sides or terminus of a glacier.
What is a moraine?
A system of linked processes or events that influence one another.
What is a feedback?
The process of transporting pieces of weathered rock, soil, and sediment.
What is erosion?
The proposed name for the present-day Epoch that is associated with the age of humans and their imprint on the landsurface.
What is the Anthropocene?
An interacting community of plants and animals and their environment.
What is an ecosystem?
The term for a loop or bend in a river.
What is a meander?
The upward movement of rock or the landsurface.
What is uplift?
The movement of materials on slopes is controlled by these two stresses?
What are Normal and Shear stress?
This type of deposit is an accumulation of valuable heavy minerals (e.g., gold, sapphires), formed by the action of gravity, typically in streams.
What is a placer deposit?
The relation between streamflow and time.
What is a hydrograph?
The general term describing sediment transported or deposited by water.
What is alluvium?
This epoch began ~11,650 years ago and is associated with the warm period following the retreat of Pleistocene glaciers.
What is the Holocene?
This violent flow of mud or debris is associated with ash and pyroclastic material and is among the most dangerous volcanic hazards.
What is a lahar?
The period of severe dust storms in the 1930s that resulted from a combination of severe drought and poor farming practices.
What is the Dust Bowl?
The study of the physical, biological, and cultural features of the Earth's surface.
What is geography?