MIDTERM REVIEWER (SET 1)

Absolute location 

• allows us to pinpoint the exact, or absolute, location of any place on the surface of the earth. 

• The absolute location of a place is indicated by referring to the intersection of lines of latitude and longitude, imaginary lines geographers use to divide the 

  globe. 

• refers to position on the earth's surface as defined by the coordinates of latitude and longitude.

Weathering

• the process by which rock is broken down or decomposed at or near the earth's surface by the forces of weather. 

Erosion

• occurs when weathered material is moved from one place to another by the agents of water, ice, wind, or waves.

Mass Wasting

• When material is carried down a slope by the force of gravity, the process is known as

plateaus and shields

• that form the stable heartlands of the continental plates.

Plateaus 

• are raised areas of relatively level land that have at least one steep edge. 

Folding

• a process involving the bending, or folding, of rock strata as a result of the convergence of crustal plates. 

Faulting

• is another mountain-building process associated with crustal forces. 

Theory of plate tectonics

• the earth's crust is divided into a number of large land masses, called plates, that are in constant motion as a result of forces within the earth

plate tectonics

• are responsible for the major irregularities of the earth's surface. 

Mesopotamia

• The earliest maps that have survived and dated back to about 2500 в.с. Inscribed on clay tablets and bearing cuneiform characters, they identified plots of land for a very practical, local purpose-to record ownership and assess taxes

• Tigris-Euphrates

Emergent coasts 

• occur where the land is rising or the sea level is sinking. 

• The shorelines of ______ tend to be regular in shape, with shallow water offshore and few harbors.

Greeks

• who established car-tography as a science.

Plains

• are extensive areas of mostly level or gently rolling land. 

Mountains

• Of the three highland landforms, ______ have the greatest elevation  

Cartograms

• differ from all other types of maps in that they are not based on the conventional scale representation of distance and size. 

Historical Maps

• reveal where they were in the past. 

• The ______ is an invaluable tool for tracing political changes over time.

General Maps

• are those that portray a diversity of geo-graphic phenomena, including mountains, rivers, cities, and boundaries. 

Colombus

• sail west in 1492 to reach the riches of the Far East, while other explorers concentrated their efforts on finding a route to the Indies by sailing east around Africa.

• He based his plans on Ptolemy's view of Eurasia, to which he had added the lands described by Marco Polo.

• He landed in the West Indies, convinced that he had reached one of the islands off the coast of China.

• He made three further voyages west, and even though he found little evidence of the promised riches of the East, he remained convinced that he had reached Asia.

Topographic Maps

• form the largest category of general maps 

• Large in scale, they are typically in the range of 1 inch to 1 mile and represent in great detail the surface features of the land, such as lowlands, marshes, settlements, and roads.

Projection

• The process of transferring the image of the spherical earth onto a flat surface

Exotic River

• is one that rises in a humid region and flows across a desert to a sea.

1850

• ____ map of the world's tropical rain forests with a modern-day one and see that the forests have been grossly depleted by lumbering operations.

•  after ___ , the Pampas were transformed still further as a result of a number of developments

• Between ____ and 1880, immigration fueled a 150 percent increase in the population of Argentina.

North European Plain 

• have also been of marked significance in the development of these regions

• Poland's location on the ______ -with no natural barriers to the east or west-has made the country particularly vulnerable to invading armies.

• Indo-European peoples crossed the ______, while more recently settlers have spread out over the interior plains of the Americas and Aus-tralia

Nile River

• _____ valley runs the length of Egypt, forming one of the most fertile areas on earth.

•  has played a central role in the history of Egypt, and today its valley is home to more than 95 percent of the Egyptian population

Central Asia

•  Indus (Central Asia)

 Australia 

•  ____ (the outback)

• In semiarid regions of _____ and the Great Plains of the United States, farmers use water from artesian wells for irrigation.