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Geograph LAB
Geography LAB Midterm for fall semester 2026 things to know
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| Latitude: -runs in what directions? -runs 0 degrees where? -degree at poles? | -North and South -0 degrees -90 degrees at poles |
| Longitude: -runs in what directions? -runs 0 degrees where? -degree from east to west? | -South and East - Prime Meridian, Greenwich -180 degrees east or west |
| What is the degree of latitude and why? | 69 miles or 111 km because they are evenly spaced |
| What is the degree of longitude and why? | Gets shorter towards poles cut meridians converge there so trip around world is shorter along 60 N than along 30 N |
| Why does earth's degree of latitude vary, and what is it? | Varies because earth is an oblate spheroid meaning its flattened at poles, latitude varies at 68.7 to 69.4 miles |
| One minute of latitude is equal to how many nautical miles? | 1 |
| What does a map scale do? What ways can it be written? | compares distance on map to distance on ground can be written as representative fraction (RF), a verbal scale, or a graphic(bar) scale |
| What scale is more zoomed in and detailed and makes things look larger? | Large Scale 1:1000 |
| What scale is zoomed out with less detail | Small Scale 1:100000 |
| What are you drawing when you interpolate between known values that never cross each other? | isolines |
| Rules of Contour lines: -Lines close together means? -Lines far apart means? -Closed loops are? -how do the show when going upstream? | -Steep slope -Gentle slope -A hill or summit, innermost loop being the highest point -bend into V that points upstream(uphill) |
| What does a point between two contour lines mean? | Theres an elevation between the two values |
| What stretched a profile vertically, so relief is easier to see? | Vertical Exaggeration |
| What is the earth's axis tilt? | 23.5 degrees |
| Where does Earth point in space as it orbits the sun? | Polaris |
| What causes seasons? | By the tilt of the earth |
| What does the tilt of the earth change? | The suns angle in the sky (angle of incidence) and length of the day |
| Why does the northern hemisphere still have winter in january | Because it is tilted away from the sun |
| when is earth closest to the sun and when? When is it the furthest and When? | Perihelion around January 3 is when it's the closest, Aphelion (think afar) around July 4 is the farthest |
| What is it called when the suns ray strikes at 90 degrees at noon, what does it move between throughout the year? | Subsolar point, moves between Tropic of Cancer and the Tropic of Capricorn during the year |
| What divided day from night | Circle of illumination |
| Why does every place on earth get 12 hours of daylight? | Because of the circle of illumination at the equinoxes, it cuts every parallel in half |
| What happens to daylight as you go farther from the equator? provide example | A larger seasonal swing happens, Poleward of the arctic circle there is 24-hour daylight at the June solstice and 24-hour darkness at the December solstice |
| What does a higher sun angle concentrated on a smaller area do? | Surface heats more |
| What are the special seven parallels and their degrees? | North Pole-9 N South Pole-90 S Tropic of Cancer- 23.5 N Tropic of Capricorn- 23.5 S Arctic Circle- 66.5 N Antarctic Circle- 66.5 S Equator- 0 |
| When does the March equinox happen what degree and what season would it be in the Northern Hemisphere? | March 20, 0 degrees at the equator, Spring |
| When does the June Solstice happen what degree and what season would it be in the Northern Hemisphere? | June 21, at 23.5 (tropic of cancer), Summer |
| When does the September equinox happen what degree and what season would it be in the Northern Hemisphere? | September 22, 0 degrees at the equator, Fall |
| When does the December Solstice happen what degree and what season would it be in the Northern Hemisphere? | December 21, 23.5 S (tropic of cancer)Winter |
| How many year of instrument records do we have? | 150 |
| What do scientist use to study paleoclimatology? | proxy data |
| What does light wood tell you, what does dark wood tell you? | Light is created in spring and summer known as early wood, Dark is created in late summer and fall known as late wood |
| What to the size of rings tell us? | Wide rings mean good growing years, narrow means there was harsh weather such as a drought or stress, similar widths year after year mean similar weather |
| What is it called when you use patterns from living trees and cross reference them to old buildings of timber called? | Cross dating |
| What can cause a drought over a huge region at once? | A large persistent high-pressure system |
| What do Ice cores do? | Holds snow layers and bubbles of fossil air |
| The Vostok ice core spans for how many years? what ppm did co2 swing between? | 400,000 years, 180 ppm in cold glacial periods and 280ppm in warm interglacial periods |
| What's today's ppm of CO2? | 425 ppm |
| What gathers info about earth's surface without touching it, usually with sensors on satellites aircraft or drones that record electromagnetic energy? | Remote Sensing |
| What records energy that comes from somewhere else: sunlight reflected off the surface or heat the surface gives off? | Passive sensors |
| What sends out its own energy and records what bounces back? | Active Sensors |
| Radar(microwaves) and lidar (laser light) are what type of sensors? | Active |
| What sensors are Landsat and ordinary cameras? | Passive |
| What is the smallest thing you can see (one pixel)? | Spatial Resolution |
| What shows are green and healthy plants are? | Vegetation index |
| What stores layers and analyses map details? | GIS |
| What finds locations based on signals from satellites? | GPS |
| What supplies imagery for GPS or GIS? | Remote Sensing |
| What does the GIS of the Kansas Land Cover show? | Shows that tree cover in KS has increased (Afforestation) |
| Where do trees grow mainly? | Stream valleys (riparian areas) |
| What do ranchers do to stop the invasive easter red cedar from growing? | Prescribed burns |
| What is the fraction of sunlight a surface reflects called? | Albedo, 0 is nothing 1 is everything |
| What absorbs more energy, low or high albedo and why? | Low albedo absorbs more since it does reflect as much sunlight as |
| Other than albedo what are the other controls on surface temperature in our experiment? explain why | Moisture- Water evaporating from the grass used energy, kept the surface cooler Sun Angle and Aspect- Northern Hemi the midday sun is in the southern sky so south facing walls get more direct sunlight and warm more than north Shade, Cloud Cover and Wind |
| What are the highest albedo regions? | snow and ice of the polar regions (Antarctica Greenland and Arctic) |
| What is the ice albedo feedback? | Ice melts, darker ocean and land absorb more energy which causes more warming and melting |
| Albedo of fresh snow? | .80-.90 |
| Albedo of light sand? | .30-.40 |
| Albedo of Lush vegetation, grass, prairie? | .20-.25 |
| Albedo of bare, dark soil? | .10-.15 |
| Albedo of asphalt? | .05-.10 |
| What is the grams of water per kilogram of air? | Specific Humidity |
| What is the most water vapor air can hold at a given temperature? | Max Specific Humidity |
| Can Cold or Warm air hold more water vapor? | Warm |
| (Specific humidity divided by maximum specific humidity) times by 100 gives is what? | Relative Humidity |
| How can RH (Relative Humidity) change | adding or removing water vapor, evaporation raises Rh or a change in temperature, |
| What happens to RH when cooling air lowers its capacity? | RH Rises |
| What happens to RH when warming air raises its capacity? | RH drops |
| What is the temperature for air to be cooled at with no change in water vapor to reach 100% RH? | Dew point |
| What does the wet bulb depression tell us? How do we calculate? | Tells us how dry the air is, dry minus wet |
| What does a big Depression Mean? | Means lots of evaporation and that the air is dry with a low Rh |
| What does a small depression Mean? | Means little evaporation, and that the air is humid with high RH |
| What does 0 Depression mean? | Means its saturate, 100% Rh |
| What releases heat into the air, warming it and powering cloud and thundersorms? | Condensation |
| Why does the wet bulb cool from our experiment? What's it known as? | Evaporation absorbs heat otherwise known as latent hear |
| Why does rising air make clouds? | Air that rises expands as it cools, and when it cools to its dew point it is saturated and water vapor condenses into a cloud. |
| How are air masses named? | Named from their source region, 1st letter for moisture and second for Temperature |
| What are the letters for the names of the air masses? | C- continental/dry M-maritime/moist P-polar/cold T-Tropical/warm A-Artic |
| Cold Front: -Map symbol? -What Happens? -Clouds and weather as it passes? | -blue lines with triangles -Cold air pushes under warm and forces it up fast (steep slope) -Cumulus and cumulonimbus, thunderstorms, heavy brief rain, sudden temp drops, wind shifts to NW, then cleaning and cooler dryer air. |
| Warm Front: -Map symbol? -What Happens? -Clouds and weather as it passes? | -Red line with half circles -Warm air slides up gently over cold air (gently slope) -Cirrus first, then cirrostratus, altostratus, nimbostratus and stratus, long steady rain, warmer and humid after |
| Stationary Front -Map symbol? -What Happens? -Clouds and weather as it passes? | -Alternating Blue triangles and red half circles -Neither air mass advances -Cloud, wet weather can stall for days |
| Occluded Front: -Map symbol? -What Happens? -Clouds and weather as it passes? | -Purple lines with both symbols -Cold front catches up to warm front -Mix of cold and warm front weather |
| High Cloud (made of ice crystals): -Types -Height | -Cirrus (thin, wispy), cirrostratus (sheet), cirrocumulus (small puffs) -above 20,000 ft |
| Middle Cloud (prefix alto): -Types -Height | -Altostratus, altocumulus -6,500-20,000ft |
| Low Cloud: -Types -Height | -Stratus (flat, gray layer), Stratocumulus, nimbostratus (rain -below 6,500ft |
| Vertical Growth: -Types -Height | -Cumulus (fair weather puffs), cumulonimbus (thunderstorms) -base low, top can reach very high |
| What does nimbus or nimbo mean? | Cloud is producing precipitation |
| What is the cloud coverage at: under 10% 10-25% 50-90% over 90% | Clear scattered broken overcast |
| What does the explosiveness of an eruption depend on? | Viscosity (how thick) and dissolved gas (CO2 and SO2 |
| higher viscosity equals what? | More Silica |
| Why does thicker magma have more of an explosive eruption rather than an effusive one? | Thick traps bubbles which builds pressure until magma shatters and causes explosive eruption, runny magma lets gas escape gently |
| What are Nucleation sites, what do they do? | They are rough surface where bubbles form quickly, in a volcano crystals and rock fragments torn from conduit walls do it. |
| What does decompression do? | It triggers eruptions, as magma rises the pressure drops and the dissolved gases come out like opening a soda |
| What does the Volcanic Explosivity Index run to? | 0-8 Each step up is about 10x more erupted material |
| Lab demo to real volcano comparison: DEMO Soda type (Regular vs. Diet) Mentos type Amount of CO₂ in the soda Sealed bottle under pressure Cap removed, slight fizzing Mentos dropped in massive eruption | REAL Magma composition and viscosity Crystals, rock fragments, & other nucleation sites Amt. of dissolved gas in the magma Magma deep underground, gas dissolved under pressure Magma rises, pressure drops, some degassing begins Gas escapes rapidly, |
| Basaltic magma -Silica -Viscosity -Gas escape -Typical VEI -Example -Main hazard | -Low abt 50% -Low, runny -easy escape -Effusive lava flow -0-1 -Hawaii (hotspot) -lava flows slow, damage property |
| Rhyolitic magma -Silica -Viscosity -Gas escape -Typical VEI -Example -Main hazard | -High about 70% -High thick, sticky -Trapped gas -Explosive -4 and up - Mount St. Helens (subduction zone) -Pyroclastic flows, ash fall, lahars (deadly) |
| Types of Stress? | Tension, Compression, Shear |
| Tension: -Force -Fault Type -Block Movement -Landscape result | -Pulling apart -Normal fault -Hanging wall drops DOWN relative to footwall -Crust stretches, rift valleys, basin and range |
| Compression: -Force -Fault Type -Block Movement -Landscape result | -Pushing together -Reverse (thrust) fault -Hanging wall is pushed UP relative to the footwall -Crust shortens, mountain building |
| Shear: -Force -Fault Type -Block Movement -Landscape result | -Sliding past sideways -Strike-slip fault -Blocks slide HORIZONTALLY little vertical movement -Offset streams, roads, fences |
| How do you read a block diagram? | Look for step, if block on hanging wall side sits lower its normal, if its higher or overhands it is reverse, if layers line up but river or road is shifted it is a strike slip |
| What do rock layers do if they are flexible or stress is low? | They bend into folds instead of breaking |
| Where does the rock break underground? | Focus (hypocenter) |
| What is the point on the surface directly above the hypocenter? | Epicenter |
| What directions do seismic waves spread out, how are they recorded? | Spread in all directions, recorded by seismometers |
| What are the 3 depth categories? include range | Shallow under 70km, intermediate 70-300k, deep over 300km |
| What do quakes to at a subduction zone? | Cluster near the trench and get deeper farther inland, tracing the top of the sinking plate. |
| Describe the Tonga and what plates do here | Old, cold, dense pacific plates that sink at a shallower angle around 540 km |
| What causes the most surface shaking damage and can generate tsunamis? | Shallow earthquakes |
| When is a fault considered active? | If it has moved in 11,000 years |
| What does a steady number of earthquakes every year show? | Natural seismic zones |
| What does a zone that sits at near zero for years then spikes mean? | Induced zone |
Created by:
Trintrindarling