... Meaning it assumes that geological processes are essentially unchanged today from that of the past, and that there have no catastrophic events in the earth’s history. The present processes are thought to explain all past events, with the slogan “the present is the key to the past”. This was a direct rejection of the prevalent theory catastrophism, which held that only violent disasters could modify the surface of the earth. At present we hold uniformitarianism to be the truth with great disasters such as volcanoes, asteroids, floods, and earthquakes as regular cycles of the earth. This theory of uniformitarianism on the slow natural processes that was observed on the landscape. If given enough time, a stream could shape a valley, ice could erode a rock, and sediment could accumulate and form new landforms. It’s speculated that it would take millions of years to shape the earth into it contemporary form. The earth is estimated to be about 4.55 billion years old and the planet has had enough time for slow, continuous processes to mod and shape the earth. However, we also know that disasters have a profound impact on the landscape. Catastrophism is the idea that much of the Earth’s crustal features formed as a result of past catastrophic activity. Meaning, the Earth’s surface has been scarred by catastrophic natural disasters. Catastrophism is contrary to Uniformitarianism, the accepted geological doctrine for over 150 years. Furthermore, observed catastrophic events...
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...Earth's Surface (Absolute/Relative). Geographic study begins with the location of places on the earth. Places have absolute locations that pinpoint them on the earth, and relative locations that place each location in respect to other locations. Absolute location A location can be absolute (specific) as in coordinates of a map using longitude and latitude Relative location A location can be relative - examples: next door, nearby, a short drive, down the road a ways. Or, it can be in the same general location as another location - example: next to the post office. Place: What's it like there? Physical and Human Characteristics. Place have physical and human characteristics that make them what they are. Geography emphasizes the understanding of both of these factors and their integration together. Physical characteristics natural environment ( soil, water & climate) human characteristics man-made environment Human/Environment Interactions: Shaping the Landscape. The landscape of the earth is no longer a purely physical feature. Human have impact every area of the earth, but in varying ways. The geography of places is influenced by the degree to which humans have impacted their local environment. Humans depend on the environment or Dependency Humans modify the environment or Modification Humans adapt to the environment or Adaptation Movement: Humans Interacting on the Earth. The postmodern world is one of great interaction between places. This movement is inherently...
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...--Spherical because (1) the perfect shape is the sphere (it contains more volume per surface area than any other shape; also it is perfectly symmetrical—rotate it any way you wish and it looks the same); and (2) nothing exists outside the cosmos; as the cosmos rotates therefore, it cannot move into a place that it does not already occupy. Only a sphere can satisfy this requirement. --Eternal because spheres (and circular orbits) are completed figures; they have no end, beginning, or middle. Eternal means ungenerated and incorruptible; i.e., perfect and immutable. The universe is divided into two parts, the sublunar (below the moon) and the supralunar (moon and above). Everything in the supralunar region is unchanging (except for stellar and planetary positions) and perfect. Everything in the sublunar region is imperfect, changing, generated, corruptible. The heavens are qualitatively different from the earth. The two regions consist of different substances or elements and are governed by different laws or principles. Change is explained in terms of potential being (potentiality) and actual being (actuality). The green tomato turns red because the green tomato possesses the potentiality to become a red tomato. As it does so, it actualizes as a red tomato—it becomes what it truly is. (Actual things are more real than potential things.) Causality consists of four aspects: (1) material cause (what an object is made of); (2) formal cause (its form or shape); (3) efficient or motive...
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...one knows how this crater located in almost uncharted land in the forests of Siberia came to be there are theories and myths, but that is still no clear answer on how it came to be. the crater is 80 meters tall, 150 meters wide and looks like a crater with the bowl shape. what makes this site unique is the mound in the middle. it looks like half a sphere was placed into the middle of the crater. the local people call it the fire eagles nest, scientists think it was caused by a dense object flying into the earth or even two. of course people think that the crater was formed by Some kind of alien spacecraft. there are many theories, but no one has solid evidence to an answer. not many things are known about the mysterious crater in the middle of nowhere but with the small knowledge of the area people have made their own stories of what happens to form this site. one theory that scientists came up with was that the crater was formed by an old volcano cone. scientists believe this for awhile, until tests were ran and there was no remnants of any volcanic activity for many years. They decided that it may have been too dense objects flying into the earth one after the other in the same exact spot. making the unique shape of the crater. so far scientists haven't proved that...
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...throughout our lives such as the decisions that we make the people that we choose to associate ourselves with and it shapes the views and beliefs that we believe in. The main question that is always asked is why we are placed on this earth, why are some humans are blessed with different traits, such as personality, ability, appearance, special talents, happens to us in the afterlife. We can find those views that are expressed through...
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...thousand years ago people tried to develop ideas of what things are made up of. One idea was that the basic properties were hot, cold, wet, and dry. It was thought that right amount s of all four properties will create a leaf. Then the elements changed and were thought to be fire, air, earth, and water. People investigated different substances by using heat, acid, and electricity to see if there was any change. Some substances would create others when they were separated and then tested on again that left some to stop changing which are called unchangeable substances elements. The new names of some of the elements are iron, copper, carbon, oxygen, sulfur and gold. Elements are substances that cannot be change into smaller substances that creates matter combing all the different substances in the world. By the 1850’s 60 elements had been discovered with their chemical and physical properties. The First Periodic Table Dmitry Ivanovich Mendeleyev, a Russian chemist, in 1869 created a set of elements from lightest to heaviest, from hydrogen to uranium. Then he noticed similarities between the chemical properties of some of the elements and made groups that made columns. The he discovered that there is a missing element and discovered 30 elements. The Modern Periodic Table of Elements There is still a similarity to the way Mendeleyev’s ides for the periodic table. The rows are different however, having 2 elements in row 1, 8 in rows 2 and 3, 18 elements in rows 4 and 5, and 32...
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...Volcanoes By Tyler Jusczak Submitted to Instructor Hutchinson GE101 Fall 2011 Introduction A volcano is a location on the surface of the Earth where magma has erupted out of the interior of the planet. Magma is molten rock, which has melted from the extreme heat (2200°C to 5000°C) and pressure that exists inside the Earth. Once molten rock has erupted onto the Earth’s surface, it is called lava. As lava spreads out on the surface, it cools and becomes solid rock again. The buildup of lava forms hills and mountains on land, and it forms islands if the volcano began on the ocean floor. The Hawaiian Islands, for example, exist because of volcanoes. Volcano Facts Stages of Volcanic Activity Volcanoes are classified as active or inactive. Inactive volcanoes are older and have usually erupted many times. A volcano is described as active if it is currently erupting or expected to erupt eventually. Eruption Stage A volcanic eruption occurs when lava, gasses, and other subterranean matter come out of the ground. The exact location of where they come out of is called a vent. A volcano usually has more than one vent. The following table lists three volcanoes and the date of the last eruption: Eruptions can be violent or quiet. Some eruptions send lava high above the surface in spectacular fountain shapes. Violent eruptions such as these often include chunks of solid rock that were blown off the interior walls of the vent. Quiet eruptions consist of lava simply flowing out...
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...scientific method is a way to ask and answer scientific questions by making observations and doing experiments. It is also a good tool when we are searching for cause and effect relationships in nature. We already know the primary question being asked: How are the bodies of water on Earth affected by the Moon? To begin to answer our primary question we next ask: what causes tides? There are several kinds of tides. The ones that break upon a beach every 10 seconds to a minute are caused by sea level disturbances out in the ocean produced by such things as storms. Also the various circulation currents of sea water can have velocity components directed toward the land which will bring water up onto the beach. As this water travels toward the beach from deep water to shallow water, its amplitude will increase until it finally “breaks” as a full-fledged breaker, suitable for surfing, etc. Underlying this minute to minute activity is a slower water wave that causes in most places directly on the ocean an alternating pattern of high-tide, low-tide, high-tide, low-tide. This roughly six hour cycle is caused by the gravitational tugging of the Moon upon the Earth. This 'tidal' pull causes the shape of the solid Earth not to be perfectly round by something like a few dozen yards over its entire 43,452.288 kilometer circumference...
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...astronomical objects bound to it by gravity, all of which formed from the collapse of a giant molecular cloud approximately 4.6 billion years ago. Of the many objects that orbit the Sun, most of the mass is contained within eight relatively solitary planets whose orbits are almost circular and lie within a nearly flat disc called the ecliptic plane. THE SUN The Sun is the most prominent feature in our solar system. It is the largest object and contains approximately 98% of the total solar system mass. Did you know? The Sun is big enough to hold over 1 million Earths. Many rituals and monuments are devoted to worshipping the Sun and/or marking important times in the Earth's orbit around the Sun. Mercury * Moon * No satellite * Giovanni Zupi * Has magnetic field * Mariner 10 * Revolution: 88 days * Rotation: 59 days Venus * Earth * No satellite * Galileo Galilei * No magnetic field * Mariner 2 * Revolution : 224.7 days * Rotation : 243 or (242 days) Mercury * Roman messenger of the gods * Smallest planet * Shortest year * Core: iron * Mantle: silicates * Crust: cratered terrain from meteors and small comets. Venus * Roman goddess of beauty * Hottest planet * Longest day * Core: iron and nickel * Mantle: unknown composition * Crust: Silicious rocks Mercury * Caloris Basin -largest crater * The sky of...
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...1. How many elements are essential? a. Approximately 20-25% of the 92 natural elements are considered essential, this is about 17-25 elements. 2. Which elements make up 96% of matter on earth? a. The four elements that make up 96% of all matter are the elements oxygen (O), hydrogen (H), nitrogen (N), and carbon (C). 3. What subatomic particles are found in the atomic nucleus? What are their charges? a. There are three subatomic particles found in an atom’s nucleus and they are electrons, protons, and neutrons. Both electrons and protons are electrically charged, electrons are negatively charged and protons are positively charged. The neutron has no electrical charge at all, lending to its name. 4. Explain matter’s state of potential energy....
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...ridges, they must slide past other plates, along transform faults 3. What is the lithosphere and asthenosphere? (defined by strength) The lithosphere is a zone of strength, where if you apply enough stress, it will break causing an earthquake. The lithosphere is 0-100 km thick between oceans, and 100-150 km thick between continents. The lithosphere consists of the crust plus the uppermost part of the mantle. The asthenosphere is a zone of weakness, where if you apply enough stress, the asthenosphere will flow. It is 200 km thick and occurs beneath the lithosphere. Lithospheric plates move on top of asthenosphere. The asthenosphere is the portion of the mantle in which rock can flow. 4. What are the internal chemical layers in the Earth and how are they defined? Crust- there are two basic types of crust. The oceanic crust is...
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...surface of the moon. During this time the common belief about the moon and the heavens were that they were perfect in shape and size with no chance of becoming corrupt like the...
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...A Universe Within A Universe: The Traditional Skidi Pawnee Earth Lodge Among the most proficient star watchers in North America were the members of the Skidi Band of the Pawnee Tribe. The Skidi Pawnee originally lived in the Great Plains region of the Platte River, Loup River and the Republican Rivers located in Nebraska. The Skidi were keenly aware of the stars and the planets. They watched them nightly for guidance throughout all their lives. Furthermore, the stories of the stars and the oral traditions of the people instructed them on the rituals of planting, hunting, harvest and worship. The movement of the stars and their positions in the sky directed Skidi’s day-to-day lives. Consequently, the stars were their timekeepers and served as a calendar. The Skidi relied on them entirely to keep track of...
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...Elemental Geosystems, 5e (Christopherson) Chapter 1 Foundations of Geography 1) Geography is described as A) an Earth science. B) a human science. C) a physical science. D) a spatial science. Answer: D 2) The word spatial refers to A) the nature and character of physical space. B) items that relate specifically to society. C) things that are unique and special. D) eras of time. Answer: A 3) A principal methodology governing geographic inquiry A) is behavioral analysis. B) involves spatial analysis. C) uses chronological organization. D) is field work. Answer: B 4) Which of the following best describes the current emphasis in the field of physical geography? A) understanding soil development B) modeling economic interrelationships among countries C) studying weather D) understanding how Earth's systems interact to produce natural phenomena Answer: D 5) Which of the following most accurately characterizes the goal of geography? A) the production of maps B) memorization of the names of places on world and regional maps C) memorization of the imports and exports of a country D) understanding why a place has the characteristics that it does Answer: D 6) Which of the following terms...
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...points are possible Introduction It is easy to flip to the index of an astronomy textbook to discover that, say, the Sun lies 150 million kilometers away from Earth. It is far more difficult (if not impossible), however, to picture this distance in our mind. In this exercise, we will learn to access the often unpalatable distances encountered in astronomy by simply scaling the huge distances to more recognizable, familiar numbers. So long as every distance within the system of interest is scaled by the same factor, we retain the meaningful information about relative distances between objects. This is exactly the same principle employed by map makers, so that they can fit Texas, onto a book page. General Overview Questions: A. The definition of a planet was changed in 2006. Using your textbook and the webpage resource listed below in number 1: Discuss what the characteristics of a planet are and how this new criteria declassified Pluto. B. How do the sizes of the terrestrial planets compare to the gas giants? C. How do the sizes of all the planets compare to the Sun? Approximatley how many Earths would be required to fill the Sun? D. If the Sun were the size of a basketball: What would the comparative sizes of Earth and Jupiter be similar to? (Identify what common, round objects would be similar to Earth & Jupiters scaled sizes) E. How do the distances between the terrestrial planets compare to the distance between gas giant planets? F. Why are there no...
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