Geography 101: Intro to Physical Geography (NIU)

EXAM 1 MATERIAL
QUIZ 1 MATERIAL
Module 1b - Elements of Physical Geography
Intro to Physical Geography
- Geography: The science that studies the relationships among natural systems, society,
cultural activities, and the interdependence of all of these over SPACE and TIME.
- Physical Geography: Spatial (and temporal) analysis of the physical components and
natural processes that combine to form the environment.
- Climate Change: Causes the need for more electricity, things will cost more
- Five Themes of Geographic Science
1. Region: Areas of Earth’s surface that have uniform characteristics
2. Location: Absolute and relative spatial location on Earth
3. Place: Tangible/ intangible characteristics that make each place unique
4. Movement: communication, circulation, across Earth’s surface
5. Human-Earth Relationships: Resource use and modification
- Earth’s Four Spheres
1. Atmosphere: Gaseous portion of Earth
2. Lithosphere: solid Portion of Earth
3. Hydrosphere: Liquid (water) portion of Earth
4. Biosphere (Eco): Organisms and their physical environment
- Systems: Ordered set of things and processes linked by flows of energy
and matter. How energy and matter move→their relationship together
- Open Systems: The system is NOT self-contained
- Most common, if in doubt, guess open
- DOESN’T SAY EARTH, CAN’T BE OPEN
- Closed Systems: The system IS self-contained
- Examples: Carbon cycle, Hydrologic cycle, Tectonic cycle
- Cartography: The making of maps and charts
- Scale: A progression of steps or degrees. It encompasses both spatial and temporal
- Spatial: electron microscope vs. satellite orbiting earth
- Temporal: 30 minutes vs. 4.6 billion years
- A ratio between two sets of measurements
- Types of Scales
- Representative fraction→no units, colon (1: 125,000)
- Writer (verbal) scale→equals sign, units (one inch = two miles)
- Graphic Scale →
- Map Scale: ratio of the imagery of the map to the real world
- Small Scale Map: Large area, low level of detail
- Large Scale Map: Small area, high level of detail

Module 1c
Location on Earth
- Latitude: Angular measurement north or south of the equator (moves horizontally)
- Parallel: Line connecting all points along the same angle, parallel to one another
- Ex: Latitude is the name of the angle (60Cº north latitude) →Parallel names the
line (60th parallel)
- Longitude: Angular measurement east or west of Prime Meridian (PM) (moves vertically)
- The angle measured from the center of the earth increases in value AWAY from
PM
- Meridian: Line connecting all points along the same longitude, converge towards poles
- Ex: Longitude is the name of the angle (30º west longitude) →Meridian names
the line (30th meridian)
- Prime Meridian: Established in 1884
- The international dateline is the 180º meridian on the opposite side of the planet
(in the pacific ocean)
- Sun-Earth Relationships: Earth orbits around the sun on a tilt AND spin
- 23.5º North to 23.5º South→Equatorial and Tropical

- Map Projection: The reduction of a spherical globe onto a flat surface in some orderly
and systematic realignment of the latitude and longitude grid (back to Cartography)
- Globes: Good for distance, direction, area, and shape. NOT GOOD for travel
- Map: Distorted to benefit the user (one or more factors are thrown out)
- Flat maps always have some degree of distortion
- Large areas of Earth: The projection system is important
- Small areas of Earth: Distortion may not be significant enough to worry
about (think North America vs. NIU campus)
- Remote Sensing: Info obtained from a distance, without physical contact with the subject
- Active: Direct beam of energy at a surface and analyze the reflected energy
- Ex: Radar, Lidar
- Passive: Records radiated energy (light and infrared from a surface)
 - Ex: Eyes, Photography (Cameras)
- Geographic Information Systems (GIS)
- Computed-based data processing tool for gathering, manipulating, and analyzing
geographic information
- Multiple layers of info can be analyzed concurrently
- Utilizes coordinate systems such as latitude/longitude
- Global positioning systems (GPS) allow for rapid locating of point data

QUIZ 2 MATERIAL
Module 2 - Earth Materials and Rock Cycle
- Endogenic system: landscape builder
- Earth’s internal processes
- Driven by radioactive heat derived from within the planet
- Leads to: Plate movement (tectonics), Mountain building, Earthquakes,
Volcanoes
- Exogenic system “tears down landscape”
- Earth’s external (surficial) system
- Powered by solar radiation
- Energized air, water, and ice and sets them in motion
- Geologic time scale
- Shows relative sequence of rock strata and events
- Shows absolute dates of rock strata and events (if known)
- Relative time: Order that things happened
- Absolute time: Actual number of years before present (B.P.) (SPECIFIC WITH DATES)
- Superposition: Rock and sediment are arranged with the youngest strata at the
top and the oldest strata at the bottom
- Absolute Dating Methods
- Radiometric: Utilizes decay curves of unstable atoms
- Certain atoms are unstable and decay at known rates→Radiation is
emitted during decay→tech is used to measure radiation emission
- Half-Life: time it takes for ½ of material to decay (different materials=unique lives)
- Dendrochronology: Study of annual tree ring growth
- Wide rings: optimum growing conditions
- Narrow rings: environmental stress
- Measured by the number of rings and ring thickness

Earth - A Dynamic Planet

- Uniformitarianism: The same physical processes active in the environment today have
been operating throughout geologic time.
- “The present is the key to the past”
- Tectonic and volcanic processes build the landscape. Water, ice, and wind
erosion wearing down the landscape
- Catastrophism: A philosophy that attempts to fit the vastness of Earth’s age and
complexity into a very shortened time span through a belief in short-lived and
catastrophic worldwide events (NOT ACCURATE)
- Geologic Cycle: Interaction of physical, chemical, and biological processes at the
Earth-Atmosphere-Ocean interface
Geologic Cycle
- Rock Cycle: Formation of igneous, sedimentary, and metamorphic rocks
- Mineral: Naturally occurring inorganic compound having a specific chemical formula and
possessing a crystalline structure
 - Common elements in Earth’s crust
- Oxygen (O) →46.6%
- Silicon (Si) →27.7%
- Rock: Assemblage of minerals (granite, basalt, sandstone)
- Think of minerals as bricks and rocks as a brick wall

- Igneous Rock: Formed by the cooling and consolidation of magma or lava

- Intrusive: Cooled inside Earth form magma
- Ex: Granite, Continental crust
- Extrusive: Cooled on Earth’s surface from lava
- Ex: Basalt, Oceanic crust
- Sedimentary Rock: Formed by chemical precipitation (limestone) or by sedimentation
and cementation (sandstone, shale)
- Sedimentary rocks are the uppermost rocks in Illinois
- Clastic: Derived from weathered and fragmented rocks
- Classified based on fragment size
- Ex: Sandstone, Siltstone, Shale
- Chemical: Dissolved minerals that chemically precipitate
- Ex: Limestone, Dolostone
- Coal: Unique sedimentary rock
 - Biochemical rock
- Forms: Thick accumulation of organic material (plants) in a tropical climate
- Burial, compaction, and lithification
- Stratified between other sedimentary rocks
- Plants take in CO2 during photosynthesis (sun energy driven)
- C enters into Rock Cycle
- Metamorphic Rock: Existing rocks subjected to intense heat and/or pressure
- Ex: Crustal burial or deformation and continental plate boundaries
- Harder than most igneous and sedimentary rocks
- More resistant to weathering and erosion
- Often comprise the core of mountain ranges

QUIZ 3 MATERIAL
Module 3 - Tectonics, Earthquakes, and Volcanism
- Formation and composition of Earth
- Densest materials migrated
inward
- Roughly concentric rings of
compositionally similar material
- Earth’s internal structure and
energy sources
- Inner Core has most bulk
density, continental has the
least
- Oceanic Crust is more
dense than the
Continental crust

- Tectonic Cycle: Brings heat energy and new material to the surface and recycles old
materials to mantle depths, creating movement and deformation of crust
 - Tectonic: “Building or Construction” →Deformation of Earth’s crust as a result of
internal forces
- Alfred Wegener: “Father of continental drift”
- German meteorologist/geophysicist
- 1915 proposed that land masses migrate
- Earth is composed of pieces or plates that are moving (6cm/year)
- Field evidence
- Same aged fossils found in South America and southern Africa (same
rocks and stratigraphy)
- Fossils of identical trees found in India, South America, and Australia
- Coal beds in Arctic (and Illinois)
- Fragments of a single mountain system found on both sides of Atlantic
- Continental ice sheet covered parts of South America, South Africa, etc.
- Plate Boundaries
- 1) Divergent
- Sea-floor spreading zones (mid-ocean ridges)
- Rift zones
- Crustal plates and spread apart
- Tension zones
- 2) Convergent
- a) Collision zones between oceanic and continental crust
- b) Collision zones between oceanic and oceanic crust (underwater)
- c) Collision zones between continental and continental crust
- 3) Transform
- Lateral sliding of plates past one another
- Occur across mid-oceanic ridge system
- Summary Points
- Youngest crust is at spreading centers of mid-ocean ridges
- Seafloor crust gets progressively older outward from mid-ocean ridges
- Oldest seafloor is only 200 million years old (Pangea relationship)
- Remarkably young compared to oldest igneous rocks found thus far (4 billion)
and Earth itself (4.6 billion)
- While magma rises in the mid-ocean ridges, crust is descending elsewhere
- Remember that oceanic crust is denser than continental crust
- During a slow collision of the two, oceanic crust dives under continental crust
forming subduction zones
- Deep ocean trenches coincide with subduction zones
- Subducted crust melts and is recycled as magma-Tectonic & Rock cycles linked
- Magma then rises to the surface in volcanic systems

- Other General Info

- “Cold War” →U.S. and Great Britian set up a global network of seismographs to
monitor nuclear and atomic weapons testing
- Seismographs measure wave energy
 - A scientific benefit→recording and mapping of global earthquake activity
Most earthquakes occur at plate boundaries, but NOT ALL OF THEM
- Plates do not slide smoothly past one another, brittle
- Frictional energy built up as plates move
- Eventually, frictional forces are overcome and plates move
- Energy is released, radiates outward, and felt in the form of earthquakes

- Hot Spots
- Individual locations where magma is upswelling
- ~50-100 exist (Hawaiian Islands, Iceland, Yellowstone)
- Remain relatively fixed over time
- Plates move across hot spots, appears hot spot is moving