| A | B |
|---|
| impacts of mining on watersheds. | / |
| impacts of residential and commercial development on watersheds. | / |
| types and characteristics of weathering processes. | / |
| characteristics of hillslopes. | / |
| types and characteristics of mass wasting processes. | / |
| types and characteristics of glacial processes. | / |
| types and characteristics of glacial landforms. | / |
| characteristics and components of water balances. | / |
| characteristics and components of water budgets. | / |
| AET (ACTET) | actual evapotranspiration |
| deficit | DEFIC; in a water balance, the amount of unmet (unsatisfied) potential evapotranspiration; a natural water shortage |
| carbonation | a chemical weathering process in which weak carbonic acid (water and carbon dioxide) reacts with many minerals that contain calcium, magnesium, potassium, and sodium (especially limestone), transforming them into carbonates |
| solifluction | gentle downslope movement of a saturated surface material (soil and regolith) in various climatic regimes where temperatures are above freezing (compare gelifluction) |
| col | formed by two headward-eroding cirques that reduce an arete (ridge crest) to form a high pass or saddlelike narrow depression |
| firn | snow of a granular texture that is transitional in the slow transformation from snow to glacial ice; snow that has persisted through a summer season in the zone of accumulation |
| drumlin | a depositional landform related to glaciation that is composed of till (unstratisfied, unsorted) and is streamlined in the direction of continental ice movement-blunt end upstream and tapered end downstream with a rounded summit |
| kettle | forms when an isolated block of ice persits in a ground moraine, an outwash plain, or valley floor after a glacier retreats; as the block finally melts, it leaves behind a steep-sided hole that frequently fills with water. |
| bergschrund | these form when a crevasse or wide crack opens along the headwall of a glacier; most visible in summer when covering snow is gone |
| PET (POTET) | potential evapotranspiration |
| regolith | partially weathered rock overlying bedrock, weather residual or transported |
| hydration | a chemical weathering process involving water that is added to a mineral, which initiates swelling and stress within the rock, mechanically forcing grains apart as the constituents expand (contrast to hydrolysis). |
| creep | deformation, the tendency of a solid material to slowly move or deform permanently under the influence of stresses, downhill and aseismic creeps |
| arete | a sharp ridge that divides two cirque basins. derived from "knife edge" in French, these form sawtooth and serrated ridges in glaciated mountains |
| tarn | a small mountain lake, especially one that collects in a cirque basin behind risers of rock material or in an ice-gouged depression |
| terminal moraine | eroded debris that is dropped at a glacier's farthest extent |
| till | direct ice deposits that appear unstratified and unsorted; a specific form of glacial drift |
| outwash | outwash plain is glacial stream deposits of stratified drift of meltwater-fed, braided, and overloaded stream; occurs beyond a glacier's morainal deposits |
| surplus | (SURPL) the amount of moisture that exceeds potential evapotranspiration; moisture oversupply when soil moisture storage is at field capacity; extra or surplus water |
| weathering | the processes by which surface and subsurface rocks disintegrate, or dissolve, or are broken down. rocks at or near earth's surface are exposed to physical and chemical weathering process |
| earthflow | a downslope viscous flow of fine grained materials that have been saturated with water, and moves under the pull of gravity. intermediate type of mass wasting between downhill creep and mudflow. clay, sand, and silt are common for this |
| cirque | a scooped-out, amphitheater-shaped basin at the head of an alpine glacier valley; an erosional landform |
| oxidation | a chemical weathering process in which oxygen disolved in water oxidizes (combines with) certain metallic elements to form oxides; most familiar is the "rusting" of iron in a rock or soil (ultisols, oxisols), which produces a reddish-brown stain of iron oxide |
| erratic | a piece of rock that differs from the size and type of rock native to the area in which it rests. carried by glacial ice, often over distances of hundreds of kilometers. can range in size from pebbles to large boulders |
| horn | a pyramidal, sharp-pointed peak that results when several cirque glaciers gouge an individual mountain summit from all sides |
| zone of ablation | zone of wastage, area in which annual loss of snow through melting, evaporation, iceberg calving and sublimation exceeds annual gain of snow and ice on the surface. part of glacier below the snowline, an area where much sediment is deposited at the fringes of the glacier |
| equilibrium line | separates the ablation zone and the accumulation zone. at this altitude, the amount of new snow gained by accumulation is equal to the amount of ice lost through ablation |
| recharge | groundwater: hydrologic process where water moves downward from surface water to groiundwater |
| hydrolysis | a chemical weathering process in which minerals chemically combine with water; a decomposition process that causes silicate minerals in rocks to break down and become altered (contrast w/ hydration) |
| denudation | a general term that refers to all processes that cause degradation of the landscape; weathering, mass movement, erosion, and transport |
| scarification | human-induced mass movements of Earth materials, such as large-scale open-pit mining and strip mining |
| esker | a sinuously curving, narrow deposit of coarse gravel that forms along a meltwater stream channel, developing in a tunnel beneath a glacier |
| fjord | a drowned glaciated valley, or glacial trough, along a seacoast |
| moraine | marginal glacial deposits (lateral, medial, terminal, ground), of unsorted and unstratified material |
| lateral moraine | debris transported by a glacier that accumulates along the sides of the glacier and is deposited along these margins |
| zone of accumulation | area above firn line, where snowfall accumulates and exceeds the losses from ablation (melting, evaporation, and sublimation). annual lacier equilibrium line separates the accumulation and ablation zone annually. part of the glacier's surface, eventually turns into firn then glacier ice |
