Geography 1st year Summer Exam

A landslide is the sudden movement of rock, soil, or debris down a slope due to gravity. There are several factors that contribute to the occurrence of landslides:

Heavy Rainfall: Saturates the soil, making it heavier and less stable.
Earthquakes: Can cause the ground to shift and break, triggering landslides.
Volcanic Activity: Eruptions may weaken the surface and cause landslides.
Deforestation: Removes roots that anchor soil, making slopes more vulnerable to landslides.
Human Activity: Construction, mining, or road building can destabilize slopes.

P(Point): Mechanical or physical weathering is the process where rocks break down into smaller pieces without changing their chemical composition.

E (Explanation): This occurs due to physical forces, such as temperature changes, freezing and thawing, and pressure release.

E (Example): An example of mechanical weathering is freeze-thaw action. Water enters cracks in rocks, and when the temperature drops, the water freezes and expands. This expansion causes the rock to break apart.

L (Link): Mechanical weathering is important because it creates small fragments of rock, which can be transported by wiprocess nd, water, or ice, contributing to erosion.

F – Feature:
A waterfall is a steep drop in the course of a river.

E – Explain:
Waterfalls form where hard rock lies on top of soft rock. The river erodes the soft rock faster (hydraulic action & abrasion), creating a vertical drop.

E – Example:
Powerscourt Waterfall, Co. Wicklow is the tallest waterfall in Ireland.

D – Practice drawing diagrams

F – Feature:
A sea arch is an arch-shaped opening in a headland.

E – Explain:
The sea erodes a crack in a headland using hydraulic action and abrasion. The crack becomes a cave. Continued erosion breaks through to form an arch.

E – Example:
Bridges of Ross, Co. Clare is a famous sea arch.

D – Diagram (optional):

A glacier is a large mass of ice that moves slowly down a mountain, shaping the land through erosion and deposition. It erodes the landscape using plucking (where it pulls pieces of rock from the ground) and abrasion (where rocks in the ice scrape the land like sandpaper). This creates features like U-shaped valleys (e.g. Glendalough, Co. Wicklow), cirques or corries (bowl-shaped hollows), and pyramidal peaks (pointed mountains like Lugnaquilla). When the glacier melts, it drops material called moraine, which helps form new land shapes. Glaciers played a huge role in shaping Ireland’s landscape during the last Ice Age.