Geography unit 2 quiz

Unit 2: Physical geography


Age of Earth: Around 4.54 billion years old


Precambrian (Earliest Life)

  • 4.6 billion - 570 million years ago

  • Precambrian shield formations: Canadian Shield, Brazilian Shield, Africa Shield 

  • First single and multi celled organisms 


Paleozoic (Ancient Life)

  • 570 - 245 million years ago

  • Formation of Appalachian Mountains

  • Large parts of North America are created 

  • Age of amphibians and fish

  • First plants, animals and insects appear

  • Large swamps and shallow seas - coal formed from this vegetation 


Mesozoic (Middle life “age of dinosaurs)

  • 245 - 66 million years ago

  • Shallow seas in the interior of North America

  • First flowering plants, birds and mammals

  • Age of reptiles (dinosaurs)

  • Innuitian Mountains formed 



Cenozoic (Recent Life “Age of Humans”)

  • 66 million years ago - present

  • Ice sheets cover North America

  • Continents take present shape

  • Complete formation of Rocky Mountains

  • Humans, mammals and modern forms of life evolve


Continental drift

  • In 1912 German Scientist Alfred Wegener (meteorologist) created the Theory of Continental Drift

What is it?

  • Theory that all continents had once been joined together in a single landscape

  • This big combined continent was called Pangae

  • Geke apart over time and formed the landscapes that we have today

Evidence that supports Wegener’s theory:

  • Jigsaw puzzle: coastlines of the continents all fit together just like a puzzle.

  • Fossil correlation: similar fossil remains from the same period found on different continents

  • Geologic evidence: the mountains on the East coast of North America and northern Europe are made of the same type of rock

  • Past climate data: similar glacier deposits and striations exist in South America and Africa. This suggests that a glacier passed through this region.

Even though Wegener provided evidence of the continental drift, he couldn’t prove why this was happening.



Plate Tectonics

  • Plates move, collide, pull apart or scrape against each other

  • Tectonic - the deformation of the crust because of a plate interaction

  • Lithosphere - made up of the crust and upper part of the mantle

  • Global plates: North American plate, South American plate, Pacific plate, Antarctic plate, Indian plate, Australian plate, Indo-Australian plate, African plate and Eurasian plate


How Do Plates Move?

  • Due to heat in the asthenosphere - described as hot taffy or warm goo

    • Heat is being released from the center of Earth

    • It is hot and gooey because convection currents cause hot material to rise and expand

  • Allows plates to movet CD a


Key Terms

  • Boundaries - where different pieces of lithosphere meet at edges

  • Faults - breaks in the Earth’s crust


What Do They Create?

  • Volcanoes

  • Mountain Ranges

  • Deep Ocean Trenches


Plate Boundaries

  • Divergent Boundary

    • Two oceanic plates pull away from each other - seafloor spreading

    • As plates move, rising magma fills in the gap, resulting in volcanic activity

  • Convergent Boundary

    • Two plates crash towards each other

    • 3 type

    • s: oceanic - oceanic, oceanic - continental, continental - continental 

    • Oceanic - Oceanic: one plate is pushed under another allowing magma from the mantle to rise (volcanoes)

    • Oceanic - Continental: Ocean plate (thinner) slips under land plate (thicker) which creates trenches. This is known as subduction.

    • Continental - Continental: Collision causes crust to rise resulting in mountain ranges

  • Transform Boundary

    • Two plates move sideways against each other - known as lateral slipping

    • Friction builds pressure and released pressure causes Earthquakes



Earth Layers

  • Core

    • Sits at the center of the Earth and spins in a liquid containing iron and nickel

  • Mantle

    • Made up of magnesium and iron rich rocks 

    • Sits in a thick liquid called magma

    • Rocks are in constant convection cycle

      • Heat from the core warms rocks and causes them to move away from the core

      • the rocks cool down and start to move back towards the core

  • Crust

    • Divided into massive plates that float on the mantle

    • Convection movement in the mantle causes tectonic plates to slowly shift





Natural Disasters

  • Earthquakes :

  • a movement of the Earth’s crust caused by stress build up  within geological faults or volcanic activity.

  •  Plate tectonics are another cause of earthquakes. Areas that are most likely to get earthquakes in Canada are the coast of BC,  the St. Lawrence and Ottawa valleys, and parts of three northern territories.

  • Floods:

  •  most common disaster in canada. 

  • Occur when there is a heavy or steady rain for several hours or days, which oversaturates the ground.

  • Hurricanes, storms, ice jams, or breaking dams can also cause flooding

  • Wildfires

  • Usually occur from May to September

  • 45% of all wildfires were caused by lightning and are responsible for 81% of area burned

  • Regions in canada that are most vulnerable to wildfires are Western Cordillera and Boreal Forest zone

  • Hurricanes

  • A storm with extremely high winds

  • The storm surge of a hurricane pushes water inland, causing serious flooding

  • Landslides

  • The downward movement of the rock or soil triggered by natural processes or human actions. 

  • Most damaging landslides occur in the mountainous regions in BC

  • Tornadoes

  • A violent rotating column of air in a shape of a funnel cloud

  • Uproot trees, flip cars, and damage homes

  • Usually occur in SOuthern Prairies, southern Ontario, Quebes, the interior of BC, and western New Brunswick.

  • Winter storms

  • Can be sudden and last for days

  • They can bring heavy snowfalls, dangerously low temperatures, strong winds, and frozen rain

  • Most occurring winter storms in Canada are blizzards and ice storms.

  • A blizzard is a storm with very high winds and heavy snow lasting at least three hours

  • An ice storm is caused by the accumulation of freezing rain



Rock Cycle


3 Types of Rocks:

  • Igneous rock

    • Formed when magma cools and hardens

    • 95% of Earth’s crust

  • Sedimentary

    • Forms when sediments compress into a rock overtime 

    • Sediments are small particles of sand, mud and other material 

  • Metamorphic 

    • Rock that has been changed by heat and pressure

    • Other rocks can be changed into metamorphic rock


Full Cycle

  • Magma to igneous rock: cooling

  • Igneous, metamorphic or sedimentary gets turned to magma through melting

  • Igneous, metamorphic or sedimentary rock gets turned to a sediment through weathering, erosion and deposition

  • Igneous rock to metamorphic rock: heat and pressure

  • Sediments to sedimentary rock: compaction

  • Sedimentary rock to metamorphic rock: heat and pressure 


Weathering

  • The process by which rocks and minerals break down into smaller pieces due to various natural forces

  • Natural forces: water, wind, temperature, plants and roots, oxygen and acid rain

    • Chemical weathering

      • Water: dissolves minerals in rocks over time, resulting in the rocks weakening and disintegrating

      • Oxygen: reacts with minerals (iron ) in a process called oxidation and forms rust like substances that weaken the rock

      • Acid rain: reacts with minerals in rocks and breaks them down over time

    • Physical weathering

      • Water: seeps into cracks in rocks. When water freezes, it expands, forcing the crack to widen and breaking the rock apart

      • Wind: carries small particles of sand and dust that are like sandpaper, wearing down rocks oliver time 

      • Temperature: rocks expand when heated and contract when cooled. Repeated cycles of heating and cooling causes the outer layers of rock to crack and flake off


Weathering = breaking down of rocks, caused by natural forces.

Erosion =  moving the broken up pieces of rock to a new location. 

Deposition = broken up materials built up in a new location. 

Glaciation

  • A glacier is made up of fallen snow that, over many years compresses into large masses of ice

  • The weight of the glacier pressing down causes the bottom layers of ice to melt, which makes the glacier move (slide)

  • During the last ice age 30% of the world was covered with glaciers, right now only 10% of the Earth’s surface is covered in ice

Types of Glaciers:

  • Alpine glaciers

  • Form on tops of mountains and slowly creep down

  • This process creates valleys

  • Ice sheets

  • Form broad domes and spread out is all directions 

  • They cover their surroundings with a layer of ice

Examples: Antarctica and Greeland

Glaciers affect the land

  • Glaciers erode mountainsides and carve valleys

  • They dig rivers and lakes

  • They transport materials through large distances

  • 200 000 km of Canada is covered in glaciers


Glaciers and Climate Change

  • When the temperature increases, the glaciers melt

  • This helps scientists to determine the rate of the climate change



Climate and Weather:

  • Weather makes up the climate of a location

  • Climate refers to weather conditions of a place averaged over a long period of time

  • The greenhouse effect causes the temperature to increase which causes many glaciers to melt

  • Freshwater from melted glaciers runs off in oceans

  • This causes sea levels to rise

  • The addition of freshwater to marine ecosystems harms multiple species

  • Increases the rate of the occurrence of natural disasters


LOWERN:

  • L - Latitude

    • The distance of place is located from the equator

    • Closer to equator = hotter

    • Farther from equator = colder

    • Earth’s curvature causes the sun’s energy to be spread out over large areas towards the poles

  • Ocean currents 

    • Warm currents = warmer temperature of nearby area

    • Cold currents = cooler temperature of nearby area

  • Wind

    • Low pressure system = hot air rising, creates clouds and precipitation

    • High pressure system = cool air sinking, creates clear skies 

    • Air masses: characterized based on their moisture content and temperature

      • Moisture: 

        • Maritime - wet (formed over water)

        • Continental - dry (formed over land)

      • Temperature:

        • Tropical - hot (formed near the tropics)

        • Polar - cold 

        • Arctic - very cold (formed over the arctic) 

    • 5 air masses

      • Continental arctic - bitterly cold and dry

      • Continental polar - cold and dry

      • Polar maritime - cold and moist

      • Continental tropic - hot and dry

      • Polar tropic -  warm and moist 


  • Elevation 

    • Height about the Earth’s surface/altitude 

    • As elevation increases, the average annual temperature decreases

  • Relief

    • Refers to the shape of the land; the shape affects the amount of precipitation in an area 

    • Windward: the side of the mountain that faces the prevailing wind, gets the most rain

      • Cool and moist

    • Leeward: the side of the mountain facing away from the prevailing wind, drier side (rain shadow)

      • Warm and dry 

  • Nearness to water

    • Wind carries moisture over nearby land, creating a moderating effect on climate

    • Summer: bodies of water remain cooler than the surrounding land

      •  aLand is cooled is by the water 

    • Winter: bodies of water retain their heat and are warmer than surrounding land

      • Land is warmed by the water 


Carbon Tax

  • Carbon tax is when people are being charged tax for burning fossil fuels

  • Some fossil fuels are taxed more than others because they emit more greenhouse gasses when burned

  • The government hopes that carbon tax will influence people to reduce their use of dangerous carbon emissions in order to pay less tax

  • The price increases

  • The cost of the tax per 1 tonne of carbon released will increase by $15 each year 

  • The increase in price will stop in 2030

  • The government created a flexible program

  • Some jurisdictions were offered to set their own carbon tax pricing system

  • 3 jurisdictions (BC, Quebec, an the Northwest territories) have a separate plan for carbon taxing that meets the minimum standard

  • All Canadians receive rebate for the carbon taxes they pay

  • 80% of all Canadian receive more rebate than the carbon taxes they pay

  • 20% pay more tax than they receive because they drive gas-guzzling cars or live in very big houses

  • Liberals have called for a pause in the tax as it affects heating oil

  • Government is trying to give tax relief to lower-income families that have been hit the hardest by inflation, which are also the ones who mostly use heating oil

  • Some people say that this pause is unfair to to the tensions with the Atlantic provinces which mostly use heating oil and will greatly benefit from this decision


Physical Regions of Canada


The Canadian Shield

  • Biggest region in Canada by area

  • Oldest region

  • Flat (covered by sedimentary rocks) with round hills

  • Some of the oldest rocks in the World is found here

  • Lakes, thin layers of soil and rolling hills

  • Majority of the region is covered in boreal forests

  • Very cold climate (long winters and very short summers)

  • Pulp and paper factories due to a large amount of trees


Interior Plains

  • Big areas of low-lying lands

  • Has mineral-rich soil

  • Permafrost, spruce forests, streams, and treeless tundra

  • Rivers, flat, large, and shallow lakes, and islands

  • Bare plain

  • Extreme temperatures and little precipitation

  • Mixed deciduous and coniferous trees

  • Grasslands

St. Lawrence Lowlands

  • Where we live (South parts of Ontario and Quebec)

  • Smallest region in Canada

  • Flat plains with small hills and deep river valleys

  • Glacier activity resulted in multiple lakes and rivers

  • Humid climate

  • Vegetation consists of a mix of deciduous and coniferous trees

  • Most likely to be used for agriculture


Western Cordillera

  • Takes up the western part of Canada (BC, Yukon, etc.)

  • The newest and youngest region

  • Mountain ranges separated by plateaus and valleys

  • Maritime climate

  • Evergreens, grasses and even cacti


Hudson Bay Lowlands

  • Mostly consists of flat area covered by swampy forests or permafrost

  • Located between Canadian Shield and southwestern shores of hudson bay and James Bay

  • A subarctic climate

  • Wet and boggy landscape

  • Little vegetation due to constantly frozen soil

  • Most likely to  be used as a fishing lodge


Appalachian Mountains

  • Located in Labrador, Newfoundland, Quebec, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick

  • Lower ranges, ridges, valleys, and forests

  • Oldest highland region/mountain ranges in canada

  • Erosion has rounded and shortened the mountains

  • Consists of sedimentary and volcanic rocks

  • Harsh climate but warm enough for trees to exist

  • Vegetation consist of a mix of deciduous and coniferous trees

  • Fertile soil


Arctic region

  • Nunavut, and the Northwest territories

  • Contain some igneous and metamorphic rock but mostly of sedimentary rock

  • Covered by ice and permanent snow

  • Cold, harsh climate

  • No vegetation

  • Has the second tallest mountain range and the longest river in Canada


Human Led Activities:

  • Agriculture - the science of cultivating soil, crops and livestock

    • As population increases, demand for agriculture increases

    • Farmers use intensive farming practices like fertilizers, pesticides and fuel

    • The importance of agriculture is it provides us with food and grows crops and plants 

  • Mining - extracting natural resources from the ground

    • Open pit mining: mining that occurs ON THE SURFACE of the Earth in an open pit

    • Underground mining: tunnels that go through the Earth’s crust. Minerals and metals are extracted underground

    • Mining provides us with minerals that are the basis of our daily products  

  • Deforestation -lumber is an important resource used for housing construction, paper and other industries

    • Forestry involves using forest resources for non forest activities

    • Clear cutting means to cut down all the trees in an area

    • Selective cutting: means selecting mature trees to cut down and leaving the rest 

    • They release carbon dioxide 

    • Forests provide habitats for animals