Weathering and Soil
What 4 substances make up soil - starting from largest to smallest?
Gravel, sand, silt, clay
What is sediment?
Sediment is small, broken pieces of rock, soil or the remain of animals.
What is runoff?
Runoff occurs when there is more water than land can absorb.
What is a glacier?
A glacier is a large mass of ice that moves slowly over land.
What is glacial till?
Glacial till is the sediment deposited by a glacier.
Say this word. Humas.
Also, what is it?
Huuuuumas
It is a dark colored substance that forms when plants and animals decay.
What is abrasion?
Abrasion is when wind, water, and ice carry particles that rub against exposed rock and wear from away by friction.
What are deltas and alluvial fans? How are the similar and different?
Deltas and alluvial fans are both landforms created by the deposition of sediment carried by water.
A delta is a landform that forms at the mouth of a river where it meets a standing body of water, such as an ocean, sea, or lake.
An alluvial fan is a fan-shaped deposit of sediment that forms at the base of a mountain or hill.
Name and explain the two types of glaciers.
Glaciers confined to valleys are called valley glaciers. The form where snow builds up on a mountain. Continental glaciers are much larger, and they are less controlled by the landscape, tending to flow outward from their center of accumulation. They can cover much of a continent.
What is longshore drift? What can it create?
Longshore drift is a type of wave deposition a that consists of the movement of sediments along a coast parallel to the shoreline.
Longshore drift can create sandbars and barrier islands.
Name 2 things that affect the rate of weathering.
Type of rock and climate.
What is deflation?
Deflation is when wind removes surface material by picking up the smallest pieces. It is the main source of wind erosion.
What is a meander and what is an oxbow lake? How are they related?
An oxbow lake starts out as a curve, or meander, in a river. A lake forms as the river finds a different, shorter, course and cuts through the land.
When a river creates a meander, an oxbow lake is the form it takes after a long period of time.
Define plucking and abrasion.
Define weathering, erosion and deposition. How are the different? How are they related?
Weathering is the breaking down of rock, erosion is the moving of sediment and deposition is the dropping of sediment. They all happen to rocks but that are all different processes that change the land.
Name 3 example of mechanical (physical) weathering and 2 examples of chemical weathering.
Examples of mechanical weathering include:
actions of plants and animals, freezing and thawing, abrasion by wind and water.
Examples of chemical weathering include:
reaction with acid, reactions with oxygen, reactions with water, reactions with organisms.
Name 2 land features that are wind deposits and define each.
Sand dunes happen when sand meets an obstacle like grass or tress and it dropped. Loess deposits are when wind drops sediments that are smaller than sand but bigger than clay.
What are rills and gullies? What is a tributary?
Rills and gullies are grooves in the soil formed by runoff. Rills are smaller and gullies are bigger. Both flow into streams and rivers.
A tributary is a steam of river that flows into a larger river.
Name and describe 3 landforms of glacial erosion and deposition.
A moraine is a ridge at the bottom of a mountain that forms when a glacier deposits till.
A cirque is a bowl-shaped hallow eroded by a glacier.
A kettle is a depression left by melting ice. When it fills with water, it is called a kettle lake.
A U-shaped valley is s valley caused by a moving valley glacier.
What are stalactites and stalagmites? Where do they form? What is the difference?
Stalactites and stalagmite are deposits of calcite that form from dissolved limestone. They are found in caves. Stalactites hang from the roof of the cave and stalagmites form on the ground as water drops from the roof.
What does the word Uniformitarianism mean?
Also, say the word 3 times fast.
This is a principle that says that geologic processes that operate today also operated in the past.
What are the 4 types of mass movement? Explain each.
Landslides occur when when rock and soil slide quickly down a steep slope. A mudflow is the rapid downhill movement of water rock and soil. Slumps are when a mass of rock and soil suddenly slip down hill all in one large mass. A creep is the very slow downhill movement of rock and soil that can occur on gentle slopes.
What are the 5 factors that affect the amount of runoff in an area?
1. Amount of rain the area gets
2. Amount of vegatation to absorb the water
3. Type of soil
4. Shape of the land - flat or steep
5. How people use the land
Name and describe 3 landforms formed by wave erosion.
A headland is coastal land that juts into the sea. it happens when waves erode softer rock.
A sea cave happens when waves erode a hallow notch into rock.
A wave cut platforms happens when waves erode a cliff so much that it collapses.
A sea arch happens when when waves erode a layer of softer rock that underlies an area of harder rock.
If an arch collapses, a pillar called a sea stack may form.
Name and explain the 3 soil horizons mentioned in your book. Name the 5 mentioned in the video we watched and took notes on.
The book mentions A, B, and C. A is the topsoil, B is the subsoil and C is the bedrock.
The video named an O layer (organic) on top of the topsoil and called the C later parent material and the R layer bedrock.