Grade 9 Geography — Unit 1 Test Review

Vocabulary flashcards covering key definitions, landforms, earth layers, soil components, vegetation regions, climate factors, and climate graph calculations from Grade 9 Geography Unit 1.

Humus

Decomposed plant and animal material that adds nutrients to soil.

Till

Unsorted glacial material containing clay, silt, sand, gravel and sometimes boulders.

Till plain

A large, flat area of glacial sediment.

Drumlin

A long, oval hill of till shaped by a glacier.

Moraine

Rocks and sediment deposited by a glacier.

Erratic

A rock carried by a glacier and deposited somewhere different from where it formed.

Leaching

A process where water carries nutrients and minerals down and away from upper soil layers; common in wet climates.

Calcification

A process where calcium and other minerals accumulate in soil; common in dry climates.

Capillary action

The movement of water through tiny spaces in soil, sometimes against gravity.

Inner core

Earth's solid innermost layer, composed mainly of iron and nickel.

Outer core

Liquid iron and nickel layer surrounding the inner core whose movement helps create Earth's magnetic field.

Transition zone

A part of the upper mantle, about $410\text{–}660\,\text{km}$ deep, where minerals change structure because of pressure.

Crust

Earth's thin, solid outer layer.

Mantle

A thick layer of hot rock that can slowly flow over long periods.

Natural vegetation

Plants that grow naturally without being planted by humans.

Deciduous trees

Trees that generally lose their leaves in autumn.

Coniferous trees

Trees with needles or scale-like leaves that produce cones.

Plate tectonics

The theory that Earth's lithosphere is divided into large, slowly moving plates.

Divergent boundary

A plate boundary where plates move apart, allowing new crust and mid-ocean ridges to form.

Convergent boundary

A plate boundary where plates move together; can form mountains, volcanoes, and trenches, and cause earthquakes.

Transform boundary

A plate boundary where plates slide horizontally past each other, forming faults and commonly causing earthquakes.

Vegetation regions

Areas with similar natural plant life influenced by climate, temperature, precipitation, soil, and landforms.

Tundra

A far northern vegetation region with extreme cold, mosses, lichens, grasses, small shrubs, and almost no trees due to permafrost.

Boreal Forest / Taiga

A vegetation region in northern Canada south of the tundra, characterized by long, cold winters, acidic soil low in nutrients, and mainly coniferous trees.

Mixed Forest

A vegetation region in southern Ontario, parts of Quebec, and the Great Lakes–St. Lawrence region that supports both deciduous and coniferous trees.

Deciduous Forest

A region in warmer southern Canada (especially southwestern Ontario) featuring a long growing season and mainly maple, oak, and beech trees.

Grassland

A dry vegetation region mainly in Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba with grasses, deep and fertile soil, and precipitation too low to support dense forests.

Cordilleran Vegetation

Vegetation in western Canada's mountains that changes with altitude, featuring forests at lower elevations and low-growing plants above the tree line.

West Coast Forest

A Pacific coastal region with a mild, wet climate and dense coniferous forests, including western red cedar and hemlock.

Climate

The long-term average pattern of weather in a place.

Relief

Differences in the height and shape of land that affect precipitation; moist air rises and rains on the windward side and leaves a dry rain shadow on the leeward side.

Elevation

Height above sea level; temperature generally decreases as this increases.

Climate graph

A visual representation showing monthly average temperature with a line in $^\circ\text{C}$ and monthly precipitation with bars in $\text{mm}$.

Average annual temperature

A climate value calculated by taking the sum of all 12 monthly temperatures and dividing by 12.

Temperature range

The difference calculated by subtracting the coldest month's temperature from the warmest month's temperature.

Growing season

The period warm enough for plant growth, calculated by counting the number of months with an average temperature above $5^\circ\text{C}$.

Summer maximum

A seasonal precipitation distribution pattern where the highest amount of precipitation falls during the summer.