Download Landforms and VA regions

Views of Earth
Section 1 – Landforms/
Virginia Provinces
Video of 5 regions of Virginia
 Landforms are the natural
shapes or features of Earth’s
surface.
 There are many different types
of landforms found on the
earth.
 3 major landforms shaped by
weathering and erosion.
 Plains
 Coastal plains
Mountains
 Interior plains
 Plateaus
 Mountains
 Folded Mountains
 Upwarped Mountains
 Fault-Block Mountains
 Volcanic Mountains
Plateau
A plain is
a flat
area on
Earth’s
surface.
 Large, flat areas, often found in the interior regions of
continents
 Good for agriculture
 Thick fertile soil
 Makes up half of United States
 Plains near the ocean
 Formation:
 Sediment deposited from erosion of Appalachian Mountains
 Sea level dropped, sea floor was exposed
 The central portion of the United States from the
Rocky Mountains to the Appalachian Mountains
A plateau
is a flat
area
higher
than the
land
around it.
 Flat, raised areas of land with nearly horizontal rocks
lifted by forces within Earth
A mountain is a
place on
Earth’s surface
that is much
higher than the
land around it.
 Highest Mountain – Mt. Everest in the Himalayas
(8,800 m)
 U.S. - Mt. McKinley (Alaska) – 6,194 m
 VA – Mt. Rogers – 1,747 m
 Amherst County – Mt. Pleasant – 1,222 m
 Mr Lee Song about Crust and Mantle
 How Mountains are Formed Video
 Mountains formed when horizontal rock layers are
squeezed from opposite sides, causing them to fold
 Like a rug being pushed up against a wall
 Characteristics:
 Folded horizontal rock layers
 Ex: Appalachian Mountains
 Appalachians formed 480 million and 250 million yrs
ago
 one of the oldest and longest mtn. ranges in N. America
 Once were higher than the Rockies
 What could have caused them to shrink to less than 2,000 m
above sea level?
 Form when blocks of Earth’s crust are pushed up by
forces inside Earth
 Characteristics:
 High peaks and sharp ridges
 Ex: Adirondack Mountains in New York, Southern
Rocky Mountains, Black Hills of South Dakota
 Are made of huge, tilted blocks of rock that are
separated from surrounding rock by faults.
 Faults – large fractures in rock along which mostly
vertical movement has occurred
 One block is pushed up while adjacent is dropped
down
 Characteristics:
 Causes steep slopes
 Grand Tetons in Wyoming
 Form when molten material reaches the surface
through a weak area of the crust. Deposition of
materials causes cone shape to form.
 In the continental U.S. – Mount St. Helen in
Washington, Mt. Shasta in California
 Hawaiian Islands
Iceland, volcanic mtn born
3 sisters peak, OR
A valley is a
lowland area
between
higher lands
such as
mountains.
A canyon
is a deep
valley
with very
steep
sides.
An island is
land that is
completely
surrounded
by water.
A lake is
water that
is
completely
surrounded
by land.
Oceans are
the largest
bodies of
water on
earth.
A coast is
the area
where the
ocean
touches
the land.
A desert is
a hot dry
place with
little or no
rainfall.
A river is
a long
flowing
body of
water.
 A peninsula is a piece of land that has water
on ONLY THREE sides and attached to
another piece of land.
 A good example of a peninsula is FLORIDA.
Sea floor spreading video
 Google Image Result for
http://howard.nebrwesleyan.edu/hhmi/fellows/gbran
d/images/larrow.jpg
1
2
3
4
 Produced by Virginia’s geologic activity
 Coastal Plain
 Piedmont
 Blue Ridge
 Valley and Ridge
 Appalachian Plateau
 Google Image Result for
http://www.radford.edu/~swoodwar/CLASSES/GEOG
202/physprov/physprov.gif
 A flat area that is underlain by young, unconsolidated
(loose) sediment and at one time was covered by ocean
 Sediment from erosion of Appalachian Mountains
 YELLOW
 Flat, low
 Marine fossils
 Sedimentary rocks
 wetlands
 Sudden drop in elevation between the coastal plains
and the piedmont
 Cliffs created many waterfalls
that fueled industry of major cities
like Washington and Richmond
 An area of rolling hills underlain by mostly ancient
igneous and metamorphic rocks.
 Igneous rock come from the volcanoes near
subduction zones that occurred before the formation
of the Appalachian Mountains
 RED
 Gently rolling land
 Where we are
 Igneous and metamorphic rocks
 A high ridge separating the Piedmont from the Valley
and Ridge Province
 BLUE
 Billion of year old rocks
 Oldest rocks in state
 Igneous and metamorphic rocks
 An area with long parallel ridges and valleys that
formed during a collision between Africa and North
America
 Collision also produced the Appalachian Mountains
 GREEN
 Karst topography –caves, sinkholes
 Sedimentary rocks – limestone
 Limestone used for concrete
 An area with rugged, irregular topography; a series of
plateaus separated by faults
 Sedimentary rock underneath
 Most of VA coal is found here
 PURPLE
 rugged, irregular topography
 Coal mined here
 Sedimentary rocks
 James River – Chesapeake Bay Watershed
 Roanoke River – North Carolina Sounds Watershed
 New River – Ohio River – Gulf of Mexico
Section 2
Brain Pop Latitude and Longitude lines
 Imaginary line running all the way around Earth
halfway between the north and south poles
 Splits Earth into Northern and Southern Hemisphere
Longitude and Latitude Song
 Lines that are running parallel to the equator
 Measures North and South
 Never intersect or cross one another
 The equator is O˚ latitude, and the poles are 90˚
latitude
 Imaginary line representing O˚ longitude and runs
from the North pole through Greenwich, England to
the South pole. East lines of longitude meet west lines
of longitude at the 180° meridian, which is opposite
the prime meridian
 Distances in degrees east or west of the prime
meridian
- Models of Earth
 The lines of latitude and longitude form a grid that can
be used to find locations anywhere on Earth.
 Lat – Flat – First
 North or South comes first then East or west
 Ex: 60° North 30° West
 Review Questions
 Each day is 24 hrs. so there are 24 time zones that are
15˚ longitude wide, or one hour different that the zone
on each side
 Why do we have time zones?
 Because different parts of the country don’t experience
dusk at the same time because the Earth rotates
 Time zones are not perfectly straight, they take cities
in to consideration
 Move to EAST you ADD
 Move to WEST you SUBTRACT
 Is the transition line for
calendar days
 Traveling west, move
calendar forward one day
 Traveling east, move calendar
back one day
 Located around the 180˚
meridian
Section 3
 To locate various places and to show the distribution of
various features of types of material
 Example: Virginia Geological Map
 Made when points and lines on a globe’s surface are
transferred onto paper
 All types of projections distort
 Example: Antarctica
 Mercator Projection – project correct shapes of
continents, but sizes are distorted
 Robinson/Equal-Area Projection – shows accurate
continent shapes and more accurate land sizes
 Conic Projection – road maps or weather maps
 Longitude and latitude lines are parallel
 Grid
 Distorts poles
 Greenland/South America, which is bigger?
Good
Bad
 Correct shapes of
 Areas are distorted
continents
 Areas near the poles
appear bigger than they
are
 Because longitude lines
are drawn parallel to
each other
 Shows sizes more accurately
 Latitude lines are parallel, longitude lines are curved
 More accurate
Robinson Projection
Good
Bad
 Accurate continent
 Still slightly distorted
shapes
 More accurate land areas
 Because longitude lines
are curved on the globe
near the poles
 A conic projection is based on a cone that covers part
of Earth and is then rolled out flat. A conic
projection’s grid is formed from straight lines of
longitude and curved lines of latitude.
Good
Bad
 Well suited for middle
 Not very useful for
latitude regions
mapping polar or
equatorial regions
 Show the changes in elevation of Earth’s surface
 Also show cultural features like roads
 Quadrangle
 7.5 minutes of longitude
 7.5 minutes of latitude
 Contour lines - lines on a map that connect points of
equal elevation
 Contour interval – the difference in elevation between
two side-by-side contour lines
 Index contours – contour lines marked with their
elevation
 1. Contour lines close around hills and basins.
 Look at numbers or hachures
 2. Contour lines never cross.
 3. Close contour lines = steep terrain
Far away contour lines = flat terrain
 4. Contour lines form V’s that point upstream when
they cross streams.
 Streams flow in depressions that are beneath the
surrounding land surface.
- Topographic Maps
 The map shows the
elevation data points on
which the contour lines
are based. Study the map
and the map key, then
answer the questions.
- Topographic Maps
 Reading Maps:
 What is the contour interval
on this map?
 100 feet
- Topographic Maps
 Reading Maps:
 What color are the lowest
points on the map? What
range of elevations do these
points represent?
 Yellow; points below 1,200
feet.
- Topographic Maps
 Reading Maps:
 What color are the highest
points on the map? What
range of elevations do these
points represent?
 Red; 1,500 feet or above.
- Topographic Maps
 Applying Concepts:
 What is the elevation of the
contour line labeled A?
 1,300 feet
- Topographic Maps
 Inferring:
 Is the area between B and C
a ridge or a valley? How can
you tell?
 Valley; contour lines curve
uphill.
- Topographic Maps
 Interpreting Data:
 Describe how elevation
changes along the trail from
point D to point C.
 At point D, elevation is
above 1,500 feet. It then
decreases to about midway
along the trail where
elevation is less than 1,400
feet. Elevation then
increases again to point C,
which is above 1,500 feet.
 The relationship between the distances on the map
and distances on Earth’s surface
 Expressed as ratio
 1:80,000
 1 cm = 80,000 cm
 Explains what the symbols used on the map mean.
 Pg. 806
 Raised Relief Maps
 Landsat
 Satellites that take pictures of the
Earth’s surface using different
wavelengths of light
 A satellite-based, radio-navigation system that allows




users to determine their exact position anywhere on
Earth
24 satellites
20,200 km above planet
Triangulation
geocaching