Download Vocabulary for Unit Four: Landforms and Topography

Vocabulary for Unit Four:
Landforms and Topography
1. Plain
large, flat landform that often has
thick, fertile soil and is usually found
in the interior region of a continent
2. Plateau
flat, raised landform made up of
nearly horizontal rocks that have been
uplifted
3. Folded Mountain
mountains formed when horizontal
rock layers are squeezed from
opposite sides, causing them to buckle
and fold
4. Upwarped Mountain
mountains formed when blocks of the
Earth’s crust are pushed up by forces
inside the Earth
5. Fault-blocked Mountain
mountains formed from huge, tilted
blocks of rock that are separated from
surrounding rocks by faults
6. Volcanic Mountain
mountains formed when molten
material reaches the Earth’s surface
through a weak crustal area and piles
up into a cone-shape structure
7. Latitude
distance in degrees north or south of
the equator
8. Longitude/Meridian
distance in degrees east or west of the
prime meridian
9. Equator
imaginary line that wraps around
Earth at 0° latitude, halfway between
the north and south poles
10.Prime Meridian
imaginary line that represents 0°
longitude and runs from the north
pole through Greenwich, England to
the south pole
11.International Date Line
the transition line for calendar days
12.Contour line
a line on a map that connects points of
equal elevation
13.Index Contour line
contour lines that are marked with the
elevation
14.Topographic Map
map that shows the changes in
elevation of the Earth’s surface and
indicates such features such as roads
or cities
15.Continental Shelf
gradually sloping end of a continent
that extends beneath the ocean and
provides a home for most marine
organisms
16.Continental Slope
ocean basin feature that dips steeply
down from the continental shelf
17.Abyssal Plains
flat seafloor area from 4,000m to
6,000m below the surface, formed by
the deposition of sediments
18.mid-ocean ridge
area in an ocean basin in which new
ocean floor is formed
19.Trenches
long, narrow, steep-sided depression
in the seafloor formed when one
crustal plate sinks beneath another