The Water Cycle
Vocabulary
Weathering, Erosion, or Deposition?
River Features
Landforms
100
This is the name for rain, sleet, snow, or hail falling down to the earth.
What is precipitation?
100
This is the process of sediment becoming organized by size.
What is sorting?
100
This is the movement of sediment by water, wind, or ice.
What is erosion?
100
This is the name for the end of a river.
What is the mouth?
100
This land feature with steep sides is formed by a steep, "young" river.
What is a v-shaped valley?
200
This is the name for the process of liquid water turning into a water vapor.
What is evaporation?
200
This is the name for the heaviest sediments carried along the bottom of the stream by the water.
What is the bed load?
200
This is the name for the breakdown of rocks into sediments.
What is weathering?
200
This is the name of the beginning of a river. (There are two possible answers!)
What is source or headwaters?
200
This is a flat area beyond the river's bank where sediments are deposited by floods.
What is a floodplain?
300
This process forms clouds when water vapor cools and collects into liquid water droplets.
What is condensation?
300
This is the name for the sediments that are floating in the water causing turbidity.
What is suspended load?
300
This is the dropping of sediments by water, wind, or ice.
What is deposition?
300
This is a curve in a river the slowly grows over time.
What is meander?
300
This landform is created and changed by longshore currents that deposit sand along the land.
What is a beach?
400
Water that travels across the surface of the land instead of soaking into the ground is called ___________.
What is runoff?
400
This is the name for the dissolved materials carried in the water that you can't see with your eyes.
What is solution load?
400
A particle of diatomaceous earth being carried downstream by the water in the river cutters lab is an example of this process.
What is erosion?
400
These are smaller streams that feed into a larger river.
What are tributaries?
400
This is a triangular deposit of sediment caused by water slowing down and losing energy.
What is a delta?
500
These are the two main forces that drive the water cycle.
What are gravity and the sun?
500
This is the name for the broken up particles of rock that can be eroded by wind, water, or ice.
What is sediment?
500
Water freezing in cracks and breaking apart rock/concrete is an example of this process.
What is weathering?
500
This is the name for a body of water that was once a meander, but erosion and deposition of the land has cut it off from the main stream.
What is an oxbow lake?
500
This is the name for all the land area where the runoff from precipitation all goes to the same river system.
What is a watershed?
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