Transcript Unit 1 - Hartsville High School

Section 3 Shaping Earth
• Ecosystem – complex community of
interdependent living things in a given
environment
• Biomes – global or localized region that has the
same climate
• Desertification – process in which arable land is
turned into desert
• Domestication – adapting plants and animals
from the wild to make them useful to people
• Accumulation – growth by continuous additions
• Biodiversity – diversity among or within
plant and animal species in an environment
• Deforestation – loss or destruction of forest
mainly for logging and farming
• Catastrophes – a sudden and widespread
disaster
• Mesas – land formation having steep walls
and a flat top
• Deltas – deposit at a river’s mouth that
looks like a triangle
• People must understand how physical
systems work in order to:
• Construct buildings
•Set up travel networks
• Generally conduct their lives
• Physical Systems include:
• Volcanoes, hurricanes, floods, etc.
• Two types of weathering
1. Mechanical – physical
changes in rock while
keeping the same
properties
2. Chemical – structure is
changed due to the
addition or removal of
elements/properties
• Give two examples of mechanical
weathering.
• List two examples of chemical weathering.
• Natural Hazard – any kind of event or change
in the natural environment that threatens human
life or property
• Earthquakes/volcanoes – comes from the crust
• Storm winds/lightning – comes from movements
of air
• Floods/droughts – comes from the water cycle
• Diseases/pests – comes from living creatures
• Down-slope
movement of loose
soil and rock by the
force of gravity
• This type of thing can
only happen if there
is a slope
• Sudden slope failure
• Materials falling
down a hill
• Freezing and thawing
cycles
• Shocks to the ground
• What are the dangers that come from
mass-wasting?
• How do people contribute to masswasting?
• Modification of the land surface by action of
glaciers
• Glaciers can pick up sediment and rocks while
moving place it in a new location
• Cirque: located in
high mountain areas
in a bowl-like
depression
• Aretes: sharp crest
ridge formed by two
glaciers pushing on
each side of land
• Moraines: deposits of
material from glaciers
moving causing new
landforms
• Accumulation:
addition of snow that
recrystallizes into ice
• Ablation: loss of mass
due to melting