Weather-ing
What is the general term for the breaking down of rocks at Earth's surface by physical or chemical processes?
What is weathering?
What is erosion?
What is the movement of weathered rock and soil from one place to another.
What is a mass movement?
Downslope movement of rock, soil, and sediment under the influence of gravity.
What is a landform?
A natural feature of Earth's surface.
What is deposition?
The laying down or settling of eroded material.
Name the type of weathering that breaks rocks into smaller pieces without changing their chemical composition.
What is mechanical weathering?
Name two natural agents that move eroded materials from one place to another.
What is water, wind, ice, and gravity?
Which type of mass movement is fastest and often flows like a liquid after heavy rain?
Mudflow
Name a landform commonly created by river erosion.
River valley, canyon, or floodplain.
Where is sediment most likely to be deposited when a river slows suddenly (name the feature).
Alluvial Fan
Give one example of chemical weathering that commonly affects limestone.
What is acid rain?
How does running water shape a river valley over long time periods?
Running water cuts downward and sideways, carrying away sediment and gradually deepening and widening the valley into a V-shaped river valley.
Define slump and describe what its movement looks like.
When soil or rock moves down along a curved surface.
What landform is formed when waves cut into rock along a coastline leaving a steep face? (one-word answer)
Cliff or sea cliff.
Explain how a delta forms at the mouth of a river.
Sediment carried by the river slows as it reaches a larger, slower-moving body of water; particles settle out by size, building up layers that form a delta over time.
Explain how plant roots contribute to weathering of rock.
What is root wedging?
Describe how glaciers erode the landscape.
Glaciers erode by plucking and abrasion.
List two factors that can increase the likelihood of mass movements on a slope.
Heavy rainfall, steep slopes, earthquakes, removing vegetation, undercutting by erosion.
Describe how a meander forms in a river.
When water flows fastest on the outside of bends in a river.
Describe how wind can both erode and deposit materials to form a dune.
Wind picks up fine particles (deflation) and erodes surfaces; when wind slows, it drops (deposits) the particles, which accumulate into dunes shaped by wind direction and speed.
Describe frost wedging.
What is water freezing in cracks of rocks?
Explain why vegetation can slow erosion.
Plant roots hold soil in place.
Explain how human activity can trigger or worsen a mass movement; give one concrete example.
Removing vegetation for construction purposes.
Explain how a glacial moraine is formed and what it is made of (brief).
Unsorted rock and soil on the edges of a glacier.
Give two differences between sediments deposited by glaciers and sediments deposited by wind.
Glacial deposits are typically unsorted (till) with a mix of sizes from clay to boulders and are often in ridges (moraines); wind deposits (loess or dunes) are well-sorted (mostly sand or silt) and arranged in distinct, wind-shaped forms.