GEOMORPHOLOGY

features of earth

Chemical weathering: change of rock’s chemical composition /e.g. limestone solution/

Physical weathering: turning rocks into small pieces

I. Features of coasts
- Constructive waves: they build the coast (they deposit)
- Destructive waves: they wear away the coast (they erode)
- Forms created by waves:
• Cave: place where the sea has eroded a weak area of rock
• Arch: place, where two caves met
• Stack: when the top of an arch collapses, a tower of rock is left
• Blowhole: where the sea is rough spray spouts through it
• Spit: sand and pebbles may build up across the mouth of a river or a bay, a ridge forms.
• Bar: where a spit grows all the way across an inlet
• Lagoon: the pool of water behind a bar
• Tombolo: where a spit joints up with an island off the coast
II. Limestone landforms
CaCO3 + H2O + CO2 = Ca(HCO3)2
Limestone + precipitation + air + soil = Calcium-hydro-carbonate
Formations:
- Doline - Stalagmites - Limestone cliff
- Polie - Stalactites - Dry valley
- Joints - Swallow hole (sink) - Gorge
- Cavern - Limestone pavement - Underground river
- Pillar - Limestone plateau
III. Mass movements
- ~: downhill movement of weathered material under the force of gravity
- depends on the rock and the humidity
1. Soil creep : slow downhill movement of vegetated soils on a gentle slope
2. Mudflow : rapid movement of mud downhill /e.g.: Aberfan/
3. Landslide: A block of rock slides down /eg.: Dunaföldvár/
4. Rock fall: It barriered Békés Stream and Gyilkos Lake was formed
IV. Ice
1. Highland glaciation
Accumulation zone: the snow and ice get together
Ablation zone: the snow and ice melt
- Erosion of glaciers:
• the bottom of ice pluncks rock from the surface
• the infrozen rocks in the glacier scratch the bed
• very strong
- deposition of glaciers
• the debris is deposited at the end of glaciers, it’s called moraine
• the moraine is not separated , it consists of boulders and sand
- forms created by glaciers
• U-shape valley
• Pyramid shaped peak /e.g.: Matterhorn/
• Cirques: small round lake
 • Fjord: deep bay carved by glacier /e.g.: Sogne fjord/
2. Galciation on plains
- ice sheet covered the European plains during the ice age (Pleistocene)

V. Wind
- Deflation: removal of fine-grained loose sand material by lifting or rolling
- It depends on :
• velocity of the wind
• the size of material
• humidity
• vegetation
- Wind is selective, it moves just the small particles
- Erosive forms:
• Deflation hollow (blow-out)
• Mushroom shape rock (rock pedestal)
- Depositional forms:
• Dune - barkhan