Geography test 1

Monday October 26 2026

Absolute location

The exact GPS coordinates (latitude and longitude) or street address that pinpoints where something sits on Earth.

Relative location

Where something is found by describing what is close to it, such as landmarks, distance, or compass directions.

Landform

A natural shape or physical feature found on Earth's surface, like a hill, canyon, or cliff.

Plain

A large, open area of flat or gently rolling land without tall hills or mountains.

Plateau

A raised, high piece of land that is flat on top, looking like a giant table with steep sides.

Mountain

A very tall landform made of rock that rises high above the ground around it, with steep slopes and a pointed top called a peak.

Valley

A low stretch of land between hills or peaks, carved out over a long time by flowing streams or sliding glaciers.

Delta

A flat, triangle-shaped patch of land formed where sand and mud build up at the end of a flowing stream as it slows down.

Shield (geology)

A huge, very old, and hard rock foundation that acts like the tough core of a continent.

Island

A piece of land entirely surrounded by water on all sides.

Volcano

An opening in Earth's crust that allows red-hot melted rock (magma), ash, and gases to burst out onto the surface.

Desert

A very dry habitat that gets less than $250\,mm$ of rain or snow a year, meaning only tough plants and animals can survive there.

Weathering

The natural process where rocks get cracked, crumbled, or dissolved in place by wind, ice, plant roots, or rain.

Erosion

The process of carrying away loose bits of sand, soil, and rock by wind, flowing water, sliding ice, or gravity.

Deposition

The dropping off and settling of carried dirt, sand, and pebbles in a new resting place.

Glaciation

The movement of giant, heavy sheets of ice that slowly creep across the land, scraping and reshaping the ground beneath them.

Dendritic drainage pattern

A stream network that spreads out across the landscape looking like branches on a tree or veins on a leaf.

Trellis drainage pattern

A neat stream network where side streams make sharp, right-angle turns into the main channel, resembling a garden fence.

Continental drift

The idea that all the continents were once joined together in one mega-landmass and have slowly slid apart over millions of years.

Seismograph

A special tool that senses the ground shaking and draws wavy lines to measure earthquakes.

The four spheres of Earth

The four main parts that work together to make our planet run: solid ground (geosphere), air (atmosphere), water (hydrosphere), and all living things (biosphere).

Land reclamation

The process of creating new dry ground to build or farm on by draining marshes or dumping dirt and sand into shallow water.

River system

A network that includes one large main waterway along with all the smaller creeks and land areas that feed water into it.

Headwaters (source)

The very beginning of a stream, usually found high up in hills or mountains where snow melts or springs bubble up.

Tributary

A smaller creek or stream that pours its water into a larger main channel.

Confluence

The meeting point where two or more flowing streams come together to combine into one.

River mouth

The final destination of a stream where its freshwater empties into an ocean, lake, or bay.

Meander

A wide, curvy loop or S-shaped bend that forms as water snakes along flat ground.

Oxbow lake

A curved, horseshoe-shaped pond left behind when a winding stream cuts a straight shortcut and leaves an old bend cut off.

Floodplain

The flat land next to a stream channel that gets covered with muddy water whenever heavy rain makes the banks overflow.

Ocean currents

Giant underwater streams that constantly push saltwater around the globe like massive conveyor belts.

Surface ocean currents

Top-level marine flows in the upper water, pushed across the sea by global winds and the spinning of Earth.

Thermohaline circulation

A deep-sea conveyor belt powered by differences between warm and freezing water, as well as salty and less-salty water.

Drainage basin (watershed)

A giant natural bowl of land where every drop of rain or melted snow flows downhill toward the same shared body of water.

Continental Divide of the Americas

A high ridge along the Rocky Mountains that decides whether water flows west toward the Pacific or east toward the Atlantic and Arctic.

Mississippi River drainage basin

A massive North American watershed that gathers water from over thirty states and sends it all rushing south into the Gulf of Mexico.

Atlantic drainage basin (North America)

The eastern watershed region where streams and the St. Lawrence River send runoff eastward into the Atlantic Ocean.

Arctic and Hudson Bay drainage basins

The chilly northern watersheds where waters flow up toward the freezing polar seas around northern Canada.

Pacific drainage basin (North America)

The western mountain watershed where steep, fast waterways like the Columbia and Fraser rush down to the Pacific Ocean.

Spatial significance

The geography thinking tool that asks: What makes this place unique, and why is its location important?

Patterns and trends

The geography thinking tool that looks for repeating shapes or designs in nature, as well as how things change over time.

Interrelationships

The geography thinking tool that explores how people and the natural environment connect and affect each other.

Geographic perspective

The geography thinking tool that looks at a big event or problem from different viewpoints, like nature, money, culture, and government.

Major structural categories of landforms

The four main types of land shapes based on how high and steep they are: mountains, hills, plateaus, and plains.

Fluvial landforms

Natural shapes carved or built directly by flowing freshwater, such as canyons, stream channels, and gravel bars.

Aeolian landforms

Land shapes created by the energy of blowing winds, like sand dunes and rippled dirt mounds.

Coastal landforms

Shapes created right along the edge of the sea by crashing waves and tides, like sea arches, sandy beaches, and sea cliffs.

Anthropogenic changes to water systems

Alterations made to natural water by people, such as building dams, paving channels, or pumping too much well water.

Climatic changes to water systems

Shifts in water supplies caused by changing global weather, such as shrinking glaciers, less winter snowpack, or severe droughts.

Eutrophication

When plant food from farms washes into a pond, creating thick green algae blooms that block sunlight and rob the water of oxygen.