Also called lithospheric plate. The audio, illustrations, photos, and videos are credited beneath the media asset, except for promotional images, which generally link to another page that contains the media credit. The Rights Holder for media is the person or group credited.
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Text on this page is printable and can be used according to our Terms of Service. Any interactives on this page can only be played while you are visiting our website. You cannot download interactives. Search through these resources to discover more about unique landforms and landscapes around the world. Landforms are natural and distinctive features. Explore how they show up in various landscapes.
These resources can be used to teach middle schoolers more about the natural world, its distinctive features, and landscapes. Erosion is the process where rocks are broken down by natural forces such as wind or water.
There are two main types of erosion: chemical and physical. In physical erosion, the rock breaks down but its chemical composition remains the same, such as during a landslide or bioerosion, when plants take root and crack rocks. Explore the process of erosion with this collection of resources. Weathering is the process of the weakening and breakdown of rocks, metals, and manmade objects. There are two main types of weathering: chemical and physical.
An example of chemical weathering is acid rain. Caused mostly by the burning of fossil fuels, acid rain is a form of precipitation with high levels of sulfuric acid, which can cause erosion in the materials in which it comes in contact. An example of physical weathering is wind blowing across the desert playas. In order to be able to improve and maintain the sustainability of our environment and predict and reduce the impact of contemporary earth surface processes that lead to natural hazards such as landslides , we need to have a basic understanding of the general configuration of landforms and of the surface processes and environmental factors involved in their formation and evolution.
Landform evolution is an important aspect of earth sciences and involves complicated interaction among different physical processes and environmental factors, such as underlying rock structures, tectonics, rock types, climate and climatic changes, and human activities, all occurring over a wide range of spatial and temporal scales.
However, because of the degree of complexity in spatial and temporal scales, long-term landform evolution cannot be observed directly. Further, the interacting processes involved are hard to infer from the limited temporal observations of present day forms. Computer simulation is an ideal tool for understanding the complex effects of a variety of physical and geological processes that interact to influence landform evolution over geologic time scale.
Yet the simulation models and the visualization and animation of their results usually require specialized software that is not easily accessible. The only requirement is an Internet connection and a standard Java enabled web browser. What Factors Influence Landform Evolution? One of the most commonly observed patterns of river systems is the branching pattern of dendritic drainage network from the Greek dendrites.
Driving forces include erosion, volcanoes and earthquakes. People also contribute to changes in the appearance of land. Erosion breaks down land and continents into smaller forms. Wind and water movement are common types of erosion. A boulder turns into sand after years of being hit by waves and particles. A mountain eventually becomes a hill when rain breaks it apart. Ocean waves and rivers push into the sides of cliffs, shaping the land.
Erosion can also create new land. As rock and other sediment are carried away by the forces of erosion, they eventually settle elsewhere. New wetlands form at the mouths of rivers through this process.
Lava ejects onto the surface of the Earth through a volcano, which is a crack in the opening of the planet's crust. Lava pushes land up and hardens when it comes out of the Earth, and the resulting mountains are also called volcanoes. Shield volcanoes can shape the land for a long distance because the lava that comes out is fluid enough to travel far.
Strato volcanoes are the tallest peaks formed by volcanoes.
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