Chapter 4

Question 1

What is weathering?

Answer 1

physical and chemical; generates material for erosion and transport by water, wind, waves, and ice as acting under the influence of gravity

Question 2

What is physical weathering?

Answer 2

mechanical breaking down of material; usually occurs in drier, cooler climates

Question 3

What is chemical weathering?

Answer 3

decomposition or chemical change of minerals in rock or material

Question 4

In what region of the Earth does chemical weathering play a more important role?

Answer 4

Wetter, warmer climates

Question 5

What is pressure release jointing?

Answer 5

Burial pressures removed responding with heat and sheathing of rock

Question 6

What is hydration?

Answer 6

combination with water; water becomes part of the chemical composition of a mineral

Question 7

What is oxidation?

Answer 7

When metallic elements combine with oxygen to form oxides

Question 8

What is a geomorphic threshold?

Answer 8

When there is enough energy to overcome resistance against movement

Question 9

Where would you most likely find a debris slope relative to waxing and waning slopes?

Answer 9

In between the waxing and waning slopes

Question 10

Angles of repose are often between which angles?

Answer 10

30-37 degrees

Question 11

What is a debris slope?

Answer 11

slope of eroded material from above; transitions into a waning slope

Question 12

What is the driving force of mass movements?

Answer 12

gravity

Question 13

What are the classes of mass movement?

Answer 13

Fall, Slide, Flow, Creep

Question 14

What is a landslide?

Answer 14

sudden and rapid movement of a cohesive mass of regolith or bedrock that is not saturated with moisture

Question 15

How does a transitional slide differ from a rotational slide?

Answer 15

Transitional: move along a plantar surface
Rotational: moves along concave surface

Question 16

When is a landslide called a flow?

Answer 16

When moisture content of moving material is high

Question 17

In what parts of the world are you ore likely to see soil creep?

Answer 17

Areas with freeze/thaw cycles

Question 18

What actions result in stream erosion?

Answer 18

Hydraulic action and abrasion

Question 19

How is stream transport defined?

Answer 19

through the ability to move particles and capacity

Question 20

What is solution?

Answer 20

dissolved load of a stream

Question 21

What is a suspended load?

Answer 21

fine-grained clastic particles held aloft in the stream

Question 22

What is bed load?

Answer 22

bigger material that is carried close to the bed by tractional processes or near the bed by saltation

Question 23

What is the shorter hops of courser materials in a stream called?

Answer 23

saltation/traction

Question 24

What is a braided stream?

Answer 24

stream with multiple channels due to deposited material

Question 25

What is alluvium?

Answer 25

sediment deposited by a stream or a river. Typically implies fine sediment

Question 26

How are oxbow lakes formed?

Answer 26

when a river undercuts a bank and leaves off a channel

Question 27

Why is sand deposited to make point bars?

Answer 27

material is being dropped off at the weak side of the river where they cannot move the sand

Question 28

What is an undercut bank?

Answer 28

where rivers cut into the bank

Question 29

What are floodplains composed of?

Answer 29

alluvium sediments

Question 30

Where do alluvial fans occur?

Answer 30

Where sediment-loosen streams enter a zone where sediment transport capacity is much reduced

Question 31

Why do some rivers have multiple terraces?

Answer 31

Due to incision

Question 32

What grain size is most likely to be transported by wind?

Answer 32

Intermediate/medium sized

Question 33

What is deflation?

Answer 33

the removal and lifting of individual loose particles

Question 34

What is abrasion?

Answer 34

grinding of rock surfaces with sandblasting action due to particles in the air

Question 35

What is yarding?

Answer 35

soft rocks are shaped in the direction that the wind is blowing

Question 36

Approximately how much of the world’s deserts are occupied by dunes?

Answer 36

25%

Question 37

Where is a dune’s slip-face?

Answer 37

Leeward side

Question 38

What is a glacier?

Answer 38

large mass of ice resting on land or floating as an ice shelf adjacent to land

Question 39

How is an alpine glacier different from a continental glacier?

Answer 39

Alpine: occur in mountains
Continental: occurs in continues masses of ice; can dominate large continental land masses

Question 40

Where are cirque basins formed?

Answer 40

high altitude hollows in the mountains

Question 41

What is a moraine?

Answer 41

Material eroded from the landscape; til

Question 42

What is a terminal moraine?

Answer 42

furthest line of til; furthest extent where the glacier actually went

Question 43

What is a horn?

Answer 43

A sharpened mountain peak

Question 44

What is an arete?

Answer 44

Sharp mountain ridge; knife-edge

Question 45

What is a col?

Answer 45

connection between the aretes; low points in the aretes; eroded depression

Question 46

How are U shaped valleys formed?

Answer 46

glacial action

Question 47

What is a drumin field?

Answer 47

series of smooth hills of glacial deposit

Question 48

What is an esker?

Answer 48

sinuous ridge of sand gravel in glacial depositional terrain

Question 49

What is a kettle lake?

Answer 49

hollows left by continental glaciers filled with melted water

Question 50

What direction do constructive waves break?

Answer 50

foreward

Question 51

What direction do destructive waves break?

Answer 51

downwards

Question 52

How does water transport energy?

Answer 52

Molecule to molecule in a cyclic undulation