Year 8 Geography: Landscapes, Landforms, Mapping, and Plate Tectonics

Comprehensive vocabulary flashcards covering landscapes, landforms, map types, geographical skills, Earth's layers, plate tectonic boundaries, and volcano formations.

Natural Feature

A feature in an environment that is formed by natural processes, such as mountains, lakes, valleys, and rivers.

Cultural Feature

A feature in an environment that is created or altered by people, such as roads, buildings, farms, and mines.

Landscape

An environment as a whole, including all of its natural and cultural features.

Landform

One individual natural feature found within a landscape, such as a mountain, canyon, or gorge.

Mountain Landscape

A landscape formed by the movement of tectonic plates pushing against each other and forcing land upwards to create mountain ranges.

Coastal Landscape

A landscape situated where the land meets the sea.

Desert Landscape

A landscape defined by receiving less than $250\,ml$ of rain per year.

Hot Deserts

Deserts located around the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn.

Cold Deserts

Deserts located at Earth's poles.

Karst Landscape

A landscape formed when dissolvable bedrock is worn away by slightly acidic water from an underground source or an Earth surface source.

BOLTSS

An acronym representing the essential parts of a map: Border, Orientation, Legend, Title, Scale, and Source.

Physical Map

A map that displays the locations and names of natural features of the Earth.

Political Map

A map that displays the locations and names of built features of the Earth, including country borders, state and territory borders, cities, and towns.

Dot Distribution Map

A map that uses dots to represent a range of features, showing the location of chosen features while using dot size and colour to represent different data.

Flow Map

A map that shows movement from one place to another.

Chloropleth Map

A map that uses different shades of the same colour to show patterns in data, where darker shades indicate greater values and lighter shades indicate lesser values.

Overlay Map

A map that illustrates how various features on the Earth's surface may be related to each other.

Topographic Map

A map that depicts the shape of the land (such as valleys, hills, and ridges) using contour lines.

Weather Map

A map that shows atmospheric conditions, such as air pressure, wind speed, and wind direction.

Latitude

Lines running parallel to the Equator that measure distance north or south of $0^\circ$ latitude.

Longitude

Lines running from pole to pole that measure distance east or west of the Prime Meridian at $0^\circ$.

Prime Meridian

The $0^\circ$ line of longitude that runs through Greenwich.

Eastings

Horizontal grid lines (x-axis) on a map that are read first in grid references.

Northings

Vertical grid lines (y-axis) on a map.

AR

The abbreviation used for 4-grid area codes.

GR

The abbreviation used for 6-grid area codes.

Closely Spaced Contour Lines

Contour lines positioned close together, indicating a steep hill.

Widely Spaced Contour Lines

Contour lines positioned further apart, indicating a gentle slope.

Layers of the Earth

The four composition layers of the Earth: crust, mantle, outer core, and inner core.

Mantle Convection Currents

The slow, continuous circular movement in the liquidy mantle caused by heat from the core, which shifts tectonic plates over long periods.

Plate Boundary

The location where two tectonic plates meet.

Convergent Boundary

A plate boundary where two tectonic plates move towards each other and collide.

Oceanic-Continental Convergence

A convergent boundary scenario where denser oceanic crust sinks beneath continental crust, causing earthquakes and melting into magma to form volcanoes.

Continental-Continental Convergence

A convergent boundary scenario where two continental plates collide and all the colliding land is forced upward to create mountain ranges, such as the Himalayas.

Oceanic-Oceanic Convergence

A convergent boundary scenario where the older oceanic plate subducts beneath the other, causing earthquakes, volcanoes, and deep sea trenches such as the Mariana Trench.

Divergent Boundary

A plate boundary where two plates move apart, allowing hot magma from the mantle to rise, cool, and solidify into new crust.

Rift Valley

A lowland valley formed at a divergent boundary when two continental plates separate.

Seafloor Spreading

The process occurring at a divergent boundary when two oceanic plates move apart and new crust forms.

Transform Boundary

A plate boundary where two plates slide past each other, triggering faults where built-up pressure suddenly releases as earthquakes without creating or destroying crust.

Tectonic Plate Boundaries Map

A world map illustrating the fractures and edges where the Earth's tectonic plates meet.

Hotspots

Volcanic regions occurring in the middle of tectonic plates where the crust is thin (usually oceanic crust), allowing magma to escape.

Composite Volcanoes

Tall, steep volcanic mountains with thick, sticky lava that erupts explosively.

Shield Volcanoes

Broad, flat volcanoes with thin, runny lava that erupts gently.

Subduction Volcanoes

Volcanoes formed when a heavy oceanic plate subducts beneath a lighter continental plate, releasing trapped water that lowers the rock's melting point and creates buoyant rising magma.