weathering and erosion
This surface process is defined as the breakdown of rock into smaller pieces called particles or clasts
what is weathering
This is an area of land where all surface water, rain, and snowmelt drain to a single body of water at a lower elevation
What is a drainage basin (or watershed)?
These are the two main types of glaciers: one is a massive sheet covering land surfaces like Antarctica, while the other is smaller and flows downhill from mountains.
What are ice sheets (continental) and ice caps (or valley glaciers)?
This is the balance between the lithosphere floating on the asthenosphere; the plate sinks lower if it's heavier and floats higher if it's lighter
What is isostatic equilibrium?
This zigzag movement of water and sand along the shoreline is caused by waves breaking at an angle.
What is the longshore current?
This specific type of weathering occurs when water enters cracks in rock, freezes, and expands, acting like a wedge to split the rock
What is ice wedging?
As a river flows over gently sloping land, it often produces these S-shaped curves or loops
What are meanders?
This part of a glacier is where more snow melts than falls, causing a net loss of ice.
What is the ablation zone?
These are the three types of stress that deform rock: one pushes together, one pulls apart, and one involves sliding past.
What are compression, tension, and shear stress?
This common depositional feature is a mound or ridge of sand piled up by the wind.
◦ : What is a dune?
These are the two general classifications of weathering: one involves physical means like abrasion, while the other involves chemical reactions
What are mechanical and chemical weathering?
This roughly triangular structure forms at the mouth of a river where it deposits sediment into a larger body of water like an ocean.
What is a delta?
These ridges of unsorted sediment are deposited by glaciers and can be lateral, medial, or terminal.
What are moraines?
This type of fault occurs at convergent boundaries when compression pushes the "hanging wall" up and over the "footwall"
What is a reverse fault?
This is the term for rocks that have been pitted, grooved, or polished by the abrasive action of wind.
◦ : What are ventifacts?
This term describes the removal and transport of weathered material by agents like water, wind, and ice
What is erosion?
This is a circular depression at the land surface that forms when the rock beneath it, often limestone, is dissolved and collapses.
what is a sinkhole
These unusual, often massive boulders are carried by ice hundreds of kilometers and left in areas where they differ from the local bedrock.
What are erratics?
While active margins are found near plate boundaries, these margins occur far from boundaries and are characterized by rounded mountains and thick sediment.
◦ Answer: What are passive margins?
These narrow, table-like landforms are smaller than plateaus but larger than buttes
r: What are mesas?
This general term refers to the downhill movement of rock fragments due to gravity, ranging from slow "creep" to fast "landslides"
What is mass wasting?
In groundwater terms, permeable earth materials that collect and store water are called this.
: What is an aquifer?
This bowl-shaped depression is eroded into the head or side of a valley by a glacier.
What is a cirque?
Deep in the lithosphere, high pressure and temperature make rock bend rather than break, resulting in these wavy patterns.
What are folds?
This coastal depositional feature is a beach with one end attached to the shoreline and the other terminating in open water
What is a sand spit?