Earths Features Landforms Objective Be able to identify

Earth’s Features! Landforms Objective: Be able to identify and describe the earth’s features and the processes that form and shape them. WHY? ? Possible reasons: 1. It is required by the state of Texas. 2. By understanding your environment and having knowledge about what affects it and how it affects you, you become a more informed citizen, and in our country we all have a responsibility or at least an opportunity to vote on issues and have the freedom to start businesses in which this knowledge could well be beneficial. 3. On a more personal and current note, this will be on a test! Bodies of water

What do you already know? What do you need to know? Get your pen and paper ready. The next few slides are an effort to evaluate knowledge you may already have and also to introduce things you don’t already know. You will be given a definition or description of a landform or body of water. Practice note-taking by bulleting the important information from the slide, and if you know the feature being described, label it! The definition will be followed by a picture of the actual feature– some of you will figure out the feature from this slide. Try to add a quick sketch to your notes.

A natural elevation of the earth's surface having considerable mass, generally steep sides, and a height greater than that of a hill.

Mountain *considerable mass? *steep sides? *higher than a hill? Put a bunch of them together and you have a mountain……. range

A narrow channel joining two larger bodies of water.

STRAIT Large body of water. Small body of water. Another large body of water.

A strip of land projecting into a body of water.

body of water Cape strip of land

A narrow strip of land connecting two larger masses of land.

large piece of land isthmus (try saying that five times really fast!) another large piece of land Public Domain. Suggested Credit: NASA/GSFC/METI/ERSDAC/JAROS, and U. S. /Japan ASTER Science Team

A usually triangular mass of sediment, especially silt and sand, deposited at the mouth of a river. *They are usually crossed by numerous streams and channels and have exposed as well as submerged areas.

delta Related terms. Estuary 1. The wide lower course of a river where it flows into the sea. Estuaries experience tidal flows and their water is a changing mixture of fresh and salt. 2. An arm of the sea that extends inland to meet the mouth of a river. Mouth of a river. Place where a river flows into a larger body of water.

World History moment…. A Greek letter sits at the mouth of many rivers. Notice the resemblance between the island formed by sediment at the mouth of a river such as the Nile and the triangular shape of their letter delta. The Greeks gave the name delta to such an island. English borrowed this sense from the Greek, although the word delta appeared first in English as the name of the letter, in a work written possibly around 1200. The sense “alluvial deposit” is not recorded until 1555 when delta is used in reference to the Nile delta. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition copyright © 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2009. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. Greek letter delta………. .

An elongated lowland between ranges of mountains, hills, or other uplands, often having a river or stream running along the bottom.

Valley

A large area of a sea or ocean partially enclosed by land, especially a long landlocked portion of sea opening through a strait.

Gulf

A group of many islands in a large body of water.

island archipelago another island another one okay, one more! and finally

A ring-like coral island reef that nearly or entirely encloses a lagoon.

atoll lagoon

A long, narrow, deep inlet of the sea between steep slopes.

fjord

A steep slope or long cliff that separates two relatively level areas of differing elevations.

Also described as a steep cliff or slope. escarpment

A large or high waterfall.

Also a cataract… Cataract Opacity of the lens or capsule of the eye, causing impairment of vision or blindness memory association…. falling water….

A stream that flows into a larger stream or other body of water.

Larger river Smaller river Tributary

A large piece of land surrounded by water on three sides.

Peninsula

A huge mass of ice slowly flowing over a land mass.

Glacier

A flat area resulting from repeated deposits of alluvial material by running water.

Alluvial plain Note: alluvial soil - a fine-grained fertile soil deposited by water flowing over flood plains or in river beds.

An artificial waterway or artificially improved river used for travel, shipping, or irrigation.

Panama Canal It’s a man made feature across what kind of landform? ? ?

1. A hill that rises abruptly from the surrounding area and has sloping sides and a flat top. 2. A broad, flat-topped elevation with one or more cliff like sides, common in the southwest United States.

Mesa? 2. Butte? 1.

An elevated, comparatively level expanse of land; a tableland.

Plateau

A long, relatively narrow island running parallel to the mainland.

mainland Long narrow island barrier island

A body of water partially enclosed by land but having a wide outlet to the sea, usually smaller than a gulf.

bay

A body of (usually fresh) water surrounded by land.

Lake

A ravine formed by a river in an area with little rainfall. P. S. A ravine is a deep narrow steep-sided valley (especially one formed by running water).

Canyon

The next question is, how are landforms formed and shaped?

External Forces *weathering - chemical - physical Internal Forces *erosion *plate tectonics Read Chapter 4 Section One pp. 63 -69 -collide -move laterally -pull apart

To finish out our objective, your next job is to apply knowledge of internal and external forces to their effect on the Earth’s features. For each landform we have just defined, identify and explain the internal and/or external process that formed it or continues to shapes it. Then, identify a real world example for each landform AND body of water.

Let’s practice: How is a canyon formed? Name a real world example of a canyon. A canyon is formed by weathering and erosion. Water breaks down the rock and carries it away. The Grand Canyon in the western U. S. is a “grand” example. You can create a chart……

What forms/shapes landforms? TECTONIC PROCESSES WEATHERING/EROSION Canyon ex. Grand Canyon created by weathering and erosion from the Colorado River. *remember some could be in both categories and some things are man-made originally