Physical Geography
PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY REVIEW FOR EXAM PART I
ELLESMERE ISLAND, NUNAVUT
• Satellite image of glaciers in the Oobloya Valley on Ellesmere Island, Canada. Ellesmere Island, located in Canada's Nunavut territory, is a polar desert, receiving just 64 millimetres of precipitation per year. Multiple retreating glaciers - including (from left to right) the Nukapingwa, Arklio, Perkeo, and Midget flow into the valley from the Krieger Mountains and provide melt water during the summer. • Imaged by NASA's Earth Observing-1 Mission (EO-1) satellite, on 12th June 2013.
THE BAY OF FUNDY IN EASTERN CANADA
• The Bay of Fundy is the location of the highest tides* in the world which has a lot to do with the shape of the shoreline and the depth of the water. The Bay of Fundy is somewhat funnel shaped and quite shallow. This causes the tidewater to become higher as it moves along the length of the ever-narrowing bay because it simply has nowhere else to go. • *Tide: the regular rise and fall in the surface level of the Earth's oceans, seas, and bays caused by the gravitational attraction of the Moon and, to a lesser extent, of the Sun
EXPLAINING THIS PHENOMENON
• The Bay of Fundy, which is located in between the provinces of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, has the highest tides in the world due to its shape and depth. There are other examples of similar bays on earth, but nothing to the extent of the Bay of Fundy. These changes in tide have allowed for the creation of various formations such as the Hopewell Rocks.
• Over time, the tides weathered away the lower parts of the rocks faster. It is believed that the rocks were eroded away by the sea, leaving only the large rocks behind. This, however, is speculation as this great amount of erosion has not been documented for a long time, so we have no true, definite way of knowing how the Hopewell Rocks formed.
DESCRIBING THE INTERIOR OF THE EARTH
• The Earth has a solid crust, a viscous mantle, a liquid outer core and a solid inner core. We’ve learned this by observing P and S waves released by earthquakes. • There are two general categories of seismic waves:
• P-waves, which are longitudinal pressure waves and can propagate in both solids and liquids. • S-waves, which are transverse waves that can propagate in solids but not in liquids. • Slower S waves can pass through both liquids and solids while faster P waves can only travel through solids. By looking at where we detect these waves, we can determine the different layers of the Earth’s interior.
THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN PLATE TECTONICS, EARTHQUAKES AND VOLCANOES
•
Individual plates of varying size move about the surface of the Earth at varying speeds. Where plate pull apart, slide by each other or collide, there is tectonic activity manifested as earthquakes.
• In the process of plate tectonics, a lot of stress is created on the border between two crustal plates. After a while, this tension is released in the form of an earthquake. Volcanoes are created on divergent boundaries or any convergent boundary except for continental. This is because in the case of divergent boundaries, new crust is being created while in convergent boundaries, rock that has subducted into the mantle rises back up a magma. • In general, the deepest plate boundary earthquakes are at plate collision (or subduction) zones, and the shallowest are at divergent margins.
SOLAR RADIATION • Solar radiation is the fuel for all climatic systems on our planet. As the Sun warms up the air, land and water, it evaporates water and creates the planet's temperature variations and movements of the air masses (winds). • The intense solar radiation received at the equator brings about a global circulation of air. This air movement creates both wind and precipitation. The movement of heated air creates three major air circulation cells on either side of the equator. • Cool air normally sinks, but the cool air over the equator cannot move downward due to the rising hot air. As a result, the cool air is pushed away from the equator toward the poles. It sinks back to the Earth at 30° N and 30° S, heating up as it falls. When this air, now warm and dry, moves across the surface, it sucks moisture from the land below, causing dry, arid conditions. Not surprisingly, most of the world's deserts are found at latitudes of 30° N and 30° S.
BIOMES
• Major biomes include deserts, forests, grasslands, tundra, and several types of aquatic environments. • Each biome consists of many ecosystems whose communities have adapted to the small differences in climate and the environment inside the biome.
TUNDRA
• Tundra comes from the Finnish word "tunturia", which means a barren land. The ground is permanently frozen 10 inches to 3 feet (25 to 100 cm) down so that trees can't grow there. The bare and sometimes rocky ground can only support low growing plants like mosses, heaths, and lichen. In the winter it is cold and dark and in the summer, when the snow and the top layer of permafrost melt, it is very soggy and the tundra is covered with marshes, lakes, bogs and streams that breed thousands of insects and attract many migrating birds.
GRASSLANDS
• Grassland biomes are large, rolling terrains of grasses, flowers and herbs. Latitude, soil and local climates for the most part determine what kinds of plants grow in a particular grassland. A grassland is a region where the average annual precipitation is great enough to support grasses, and in some areas a few trees. • The precipitation is so eratic that drought and fire prevent large forests from growing. Grasses can survive fires because they grow from the bottom instead of the top. Their stems can grow again after being burned off. The soil of most grasslands is also too thin and dry for trees to survive.
DESERTS
• Deserts cover about one fifth of the Earth's land surface. Most Hot and Dry Deserts are near the Tropic of Cancer or the Tropic of Capricorn. Cold Deserts are near the Arctic part of the world.
• The precipitation in Hot and Dry Deserts and the precipitation in Cold Deserts is different. Hot and Dry Deserts usually have very little rainfall and/or concentrated rainfall in short periods between long rainless periods. • Cold Deserts usually have lots of snow. They also have rain around spring.
FOREST
• The forest has four distinct seasons, spring, summer, autumn, and winter. In the autumn the leaves change color. During the winter months the trees lose their leaves. • The animals adapt to the climate by hibernating in the winter and living off the land in the other three seasons. The animals have adapted to the land by trying the plants in the forest to see if they are good to eat for a good supply of food. Also the trees provide shelter for them. Animal use the trees for food and a water sources. Most of the animals are camouflaged to look like the ground.
AQUATIC
• The aquatic biome is definitely the largest biome out there. Water covers nearly 75 percent of the earth's surface, in the form of oceans, lakes, rivers, etc. The aquatic biome can be divided into two categories: freshwater regions and saltwater regions. • Aquatic regions house numerous species of plants and animals, both large and small. In fact, this is where life began billions of years ago when amino acids first started to come together. Without water, most life forms would be unable to sustain themselves and the Earth would be a barren, desert-like place. Although water temperatures can vary widely, aquatic areas tend to be more humid and the air temperature on the cooler side.
BIOMES DESERT BIOME: reptiles do very well in this type of biome determined most importantly by the amount of precipitation that falls AQUATIC BIOME: covers 75% of the globe TUNDRA BIOME: consists of permafrost in many areas covers 20% of the planet's surface GRASSLAND BIOME: also named steppe, pampas, veldts or puszta life in parts of this biome must be adapted for both cool-wet and warm-dry conditions, as well as for constant motion exists mainly as a result of seasonal drought, occasional fires and grazing by large animals
FOREST BIOME: makes up 35% of Canada's land area consumes the most carbon dioxide and produces the most oxygen on a global scale
ELLESMERE ISLAND, NUNAVUT
• Satellite image of glaciers in the Oobloya Valley on Ellesmere Island, Canada. Ellesmere Island, located in Canada's Nunavut territory, is a polar desert, receiving just 64 millimetres of precipitation per year. Multiple retreating glaciers - including (from left to right) the Nukapingwa, Arklio, Perkeo, and Midget flow into the valley from the Krieger Mountains and provide melt water during the summer. • Imaged by NASA's Earth Observing-1 Mission (EO-1) satellite, on 12th June 2013.
THE BAY OF FUNDY IN EASTERN CANADA
• The Bay of Fundy is the location of the highest tides* in the world which has a lot to do with the shape of the shoreline and the depth of the water. The Bay of Fundy is somewhat funnel shaped and quite shallow. This causes the tidewater to become higher as it moves along the length of the ever-narrowing bay because it simply has nowhere else to go. • *Tide: the regular rise and fall in the surface level of the Earth's oceans, seas, and bays caused by the gravitational attraction of the Moon and, to a lesser extent, of the Sun
EXPLAINING THIS PHENOMENON
• The Bay of Fundy, which is located in between the provinces of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, has the highest tides in the world due to its shape and depth. There are other examples of similar bays on earth, but nothing to the extent of the Bay of Fundy. These changes in tide have allowed for the creation of various formations such as the Hopewell Rocks.
• Over time, the tides weathered away the lower parts of the rocks faster. It is believed that the rocks were eroded away by the sea, leaving only the large rocks behind. This, however, is speculation as this great amount of erosion has not been documented for a long time, so we have no true, definite way of knowing how the Hopewell Rocks formed.
DESCRIBING THE INTERIOR OF THE EARTH
• The Earth has a solid crust, a viscous mantle, a liquid outer core and a solid inner core. We’ve learned this by observing P and S waves released by earthquakes. • There are two general categories of seismic waves:
• P-waves, which are longitudinal pressure waves and can propagate in both solids and liquids. • S-waves, which are transverse waves that can propagate in solids but not in liquids. • Slower S waves can pass through both liquids and solids while faster P waves can only travel through solids. By looking at where we detect these waves, we can determine the different layers of the Earth’s interior.
THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN PLATE TECTONICS, EARTHQUAKES AND VOLCANOES
•
Individual plates of varying size move about the surface of the Earth at varying speeds. Where plate pull apart, slide by each other or collide, there is tectonic activity manifested as earthquakes.
• In the process of plate tectonics, a lot of stress is created on the border between two crustal plates. After a while, this tension is released in the form of an earthquake. Volcanoes are created on divergent boundaries or any convergent boundary except for continental. This is because in the case of divergent boundaries, new crust is being created while in convergent boundaries, rock that has subducted into the mantle rises back up a magma. • In general, the deepest plate boundary earthquakes are at plate collision (or subduction) zones, and the shallowest are at divergent margins.
SOLAR RADIATION • Solar radiation is the fuel for all climatic systems on our planet. As the Sun warms up the air, land and water, it evaporates water and creates the planet's temperature variations and movements of the air masses (winds). • The intense solar radiation received at the equator brings about a global circulation of air. This air movement creates both wind and precipitation. The movement of heated air creates three major air circulation cells on either side of the equator. • Cool air normally sinks, but the cool air over the equator cannot move downward due to the rising hot air. As a result, the cool air is pushed away from the equator toward the poles. It sinks back to the Earth at 30° N and 30° S, heating up as it falls. When this air, now warm and dry, moves across the surface, it sucks moisture from the land below, causing dry, arid conditions. Not surprisingly, most of the world's deserts are found at latitudes of 30° N and 30° S.
BIOMES
• Major biomes include deserts, forests, grasslands, tundra, and several types of aquatic environments. • Each biome consists of many ecosystems whose communities have adapted to the small differences in climate and the environment inside the biome.
TUNDRA
• Tundra comes from the Finnish word "tunturia", which means a barren land. The ground is permanently frozen 10 inches to 3 feet (25 to 100 cm) down so that trees can't grow there. The bare and sometimes rocky ground can only support low growing plants like mosses, heaths, and lichen. In the winter it is cold and dark and in the summer, when the snow and the top layer of permafrost melt, it is very soggy and the tundra is covered with marshes, lakes, bogs and streams that breed thousands of insects and attract many migrating birds.
GRASSLANDS
• Grassland biomes are large, rolling terrains of grasses, flowers and herbs. Latitude, soil and local climates for the most part determine what kinds of plants grow in a particular grassland. A grassland is a region where the average annual precipitation is great enough to support grasses, and in some areas a few trees. • The precipitation is so eratic that drought and fire prevent large forests from growing. Grasses can survive fires because they grow from the bottom instead of the top. Their stems can grow again after being burned off. The soil of most grasslands is also too thin and dry for trees to survive.
DESERTS
• Deserts cover about one fifth of the Earth's land surface. Most Hot and Dry Deserts are near the Tropic of Cancer or the Tropic of Capricorn. Cold Deserts are near the Arctic part of the world.
• The precipitation in Hot and Dry Deserts and the precipitation in Cold Deserts is different. Hot and Dry Deserts usually have very little rainfall and/or concentrated rainfall in short periods between long rainless periods. • Cold Deserts usually have lots of snow. They also have rain around spring.
FOREST
• The forest has four distinct seasons, spring, summer, autumn, and winter. In the autumn the leaves change color. During the winter months the trees lose their leaves. • The animals adapt to the climate by hibernating in the winter and living off the land in the other three seasons. The animals have adapted to the land by trying the plants in the forest to see if they are good to eat for a good supply of food. Also the trees provide shelter for them. Animal use the trees for food and a water sources. Most of the animals are camouflaged to look like the ground.
AQUATIC
• The aquatic biome is definitely the largest biome out there. Water covers nearly 75 percent of the earth's surface, in the form of oceans, lakes, rivers, etc. The aquatic biome can be divided into two categories: freshwater regions and saltwater regions. • Aquatic regions house numerous species of plants and animals, both large and small. In fact, this is where life began billions of years ago when amino acids first started to come together. Without water, most life forms would be unable to sustain themselves and the Earth would be a barren, desert-like place. Although water temperatures can vary widely, aquatic areas tend to be more humid and the air temperature on the cooler side.
BIOMES DESERT BIOME: reptiles do very well in this type of biome determined most importantly by the amount of precipitation that falls AQUATIC BIOME: covers 75% of the globe TUNDRA BIOME: consists of permafrost in many areas covers 20% of the planet's surface GRASSLAND BIOME: also named steppe, pampas, veldts or puszta life in parts of this biome must be adapted for both cool-wet and warm-dry conditions, as well as for constant motion exists mainly as a result of seasonal drought, occasional fires and grazing by large animals
FOREST BIOME: makes up 35% of Canada's land area consumes the most carbon dioxide and produces the most oxygen on a global scale
