Geography 101
Terms
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- Cap rock
- Top layer that is harder than the layers beneath
- Food Pyramid
- Conceptualization of energy transfer through the ecosystem from large numbers of "lower" forms of life to smaller numbers of "higher forms. Order in which organisms feed on one another.
- Sweepstakes Dispersal
- the likelihood of one species getting from one place to another is slim to none. A sweepstakes route is one where an organism crosses a vast area of inhospitable habitat or some other barrier to colonize a very distant location. Islands are good examples of these, this is totally by accident, and it's never intentional. Organisms capable of sweepstakes dispersal include animals that can fly, or plants that have seeds that can float, blow in the wind, or be carried by an animal. Mountaintops surrounded by desert terrain and remote islands are examples of places that require sweepstakes dispersal. Areas that require sweepstakes dispersal for colonization to occur are said to have disharmonic biotas.
- Glacial erratic
- Boulder left behind in a till plain as a glacier retreats. Depositional.
- Filter Dispersal
- where the interconnecting region may contain a more limited variety of habitats, so that only those organisms that can exist in these habitats will be able to disperse through it. Mostly occurs from North America to South America Example: tropical lowlands of Central America
- Erg
- "Sea of sand". Accumulates into sand dunes. E.g. Sahara
- Longitudinal Dunes (seif)
- Winds blow one direction part of the year and then another direction for another part
- Basin and Range Terrain
- E.g. Great Basin. Water doesn't drain out to the ocean, not enough
- Arête
- A narrow, jagged, serrated spine of rock. Remainder of a ridge crest between cirques.
- Coral Reef
- Delicate marine animals that live in dense colonies. Corals extract calcium carbonate from seawater and secrete lime to form exoskeletons. Three environment requirements: Warm water, lots of sunlight, a stable foundation. Occur throughout tropical and subtropical zones.
- Biome
- A large, recognizable assemblage of plants and animals in functional interaction with its environment.
- Equilibrium Line
- Theoretical line separating the ablation (wastage of glacial ice) zone and accumulation (addition of ice by incorporation of snow) zone of a glacier along which accumulation exactly balances ablation.
- Beach Drifting (Longshore Drift)
- Waves come in to the coast at an angle, the sand gets pushed up and when the water retreats back towards the ocean it retreats perpendicular to the coastline. How sand on a beach is transported.
- Terminal Moraine
- A glacial deposit that builds up at the end of a glacier.
- Exotic/Alien Species
- Species that have been translocated by humans and have become established. Examples: Boars in Hawaii.
- Ecosystem
- The totality of interactions among organisms and the environment in the area of consideration.
- Pleistocene
- Began about 2 million years ago. About 1/3 of the land area of Earth was covered in ice.
- Biogeography
- The study of living things in a spatial and temporal context. Why plants and animals occur where they do.
- Tsunami
- Huge waves that are generated by earthquakes.
- Endemic Species
- The entire specie lives in one usually small area and adapts and evolves to that location. Becomes very unlike the founding group. They occur nowhere else. Example: Bonneville Cisco, Desert Pupfish, June Sucker, Lemurs, Moas
- Continental Glaciation
- Glaciers that don't develop in mountains.
- Feral
- Domesticated breed that can/has revert/ed back to the wild. Example: Horses.
- Reg
- Desert pavement. Very hard surface. Some vegetation. Sand and other lighter materials have been blown away
- Disharmonic Biota
- Typically represent only a few groups or families that made the migration to get there and then once they get to the new place they diversify into lots of very similar, but different, species.
- Species
- Group of organisms that are similar to each other that cannot reproduce with other populations of organisms.
- Swash
- The cascading forward motion of a breaking wave that rushes up the beach.
- Barchan Dunes
- Crescent shape. Horns always point downwind. Don't have much sand
- Blow Hole
- Openings in layers of coastal rock, where the softer level of rock has been eroded away and there is an opening and all the water gets pushed into a smaller and smaller area, and so it is forced upward
- Outwash Plain
- Melt water transported the finer material past the terminal moraine.
- Horn
- Sharp mountain peak where glaciers have existed on at least 3 different sides of the peak.
- Exotic Stream
- A stream that flows into a dry region, bringing its water from somewhere else. E.g. the Nile
- Sea Arch
- Where two sea-stacks have connected like a bridge or where the waves have eroded away part of the mountain cliff creating a 'u'-shaped opening
- Loess
- Fine-grained, wind-deposited silt. Lacks horizontal stratification. Ability to stand in vertical cliffs
- Esker
- Path marks a former stream of glacial melt water. Depositional.
- Corridor Dispersal
- Corridor pathways include a wide variety of habitats so that the majority of organisms found at either end of the corridor would find little difficulty in transversing it. Almost like a continuous habitat so that the animals and plants are similar throughout. There's a similarity in habitats as one moves across the continent, but there are a lot of different habitats, so all species can expand and move quickly through areas that are less favorable for them Example: Europe and China
- Kettle Lake
- Occur in till plains. Chunks of ice left after a glacier recedes. Slowly melt and fill with rain water. Depositional.
- Little (Medieval) Ice Age
- 900-1250 AD. Warm period. Iceland and Greenland were settled but the settlements failed as it got colder between 1300-1850 AD.
- Transverse Dunes
- Greater sand accumulations. Interconnected. Associated with prevailing winds
- Spit/Hook
- Protruding sandbar that hasn't completely closed off a bay.
- Fjord
- A glacial valley that filled up with ocean water
- Estuary
- A finger of the sea projecting inland along drowned river valleys.
- Inter-glacial
- Small warm periods during the Pleistocene.
- Wave-cut Terrace
- Gently sloping, wave-eroded bedrock platform that develops just below sea level and then sea level drops and erodes at that level and so on.
- Badlands
- Erode easily, Stony, hilly terrain
- Ice Sheet
- A huge blanket of ice that completely submerges the underlying terrain to depths of hundreds or thousands of meters
- Medial Moraine
- A dark band of rocky debris down the middle of where two glaciers have combined.
- Ecotone
- The transition zone between biotic communities in which the typical species of one community intermingle with those of another.
- Ice Shelf
- A massive portion of an ice sheet that projects out over the sea.
- Alpine Glaciation
- Develops near a mountain crest line and normally moves down-valley.
- Cirque
- A broad amphitheater hollowed out at the head of a glacial valley by erosion.
- Coasts of emergence
- Erosional landform. Typically rough, rocky coastlines. Example: West Coast of USA
- Beach
- Usually better developed on coasts of submergence.
- Domestic
- Species that have been genetically altered according to human preferences. Requires human assistance for survival. Example: Cows, pigs
- Glacial trough/valley
- A valley shaped by an alpine glacier. Usually U-shaped.
- Glacial Till
- Rock debris that is deposited directly by moving or melting ice, with no meltwater flow or redeposition involved.
- Abrasion
- The chipping and grinding effect of rock fragments at they are swirled or bounced or rolled downstream by moving water.
- Biosphere
- The living organisms of Earth.
- Paleolakes (Pluvial Lakes)
- Occurs in places like desert valleys that fill up with water. Example: Lake Bonnevile
- Alluvial Fan
- Cones of sediment at the base of arid canyons
- Playa
- Dry lake bed
- Deflation
- The shifting of loose particles by wind blowing them into the air or rolling them along the ground
- Barrier Islands
- Can be anywhere from a couple hundred yards to a couple hundred miles long. A sandy island that forms just off of a submergence coastline, forms when large storm waves break where the ocean starts to get shallow, it slows down the waves and deposits the sand.
- Disjunct Distribution
- A species occurs in two or more widely separated areas. Can also occur when humans transform areas of continuous habitat into fragmented remnants. Species whose ranges have become fragmented because of persecution. Geological events and climates can also be factors. Examples: Mountain Gorilla in Africa, Grizzly Bears, Tassel-eared Squirrels.
- Mesa and Scarp Terrain
- Plateau to Mesa to Butte to Pinnacle
- Drumlin
- A low, elongated hill formed by glacial deposition. Parallel with the direction of ice movements. Higher at the end facing the glacier and then tapers off.
- Tombolo
- A sandbar that stretches all the way from the coast out to a rocky island, as long as the water is shallow, after crashing against the rocky island, the waves tend to lose their energy and deposit the sand that they were carrying there.
- Marine Cliff
- Shaped and maintained by waves
- Desertification
- Degradation of the soil and biota due to a combination of drought and improper land use
- Coasts of submergence
- Depositional landforms. Gentle slope. Example: Southern East Coast of USA
- Sea Stack
- rocky islands or pinnacles of rock that used to be part of a continuous marine cliff, but due to erosion they break down and crumble into the ocean