World Geography / Unit 2: Physical Geography
2.2 Landforms and the Forces That Shape Them
Notes
Earth's surface is shaped by internal forces (plate movement, volcanoes) and external forces (weathering, erosion, deposition).
- Weathering breaks rock into smaller pieces. Erosion carries material away by water, wind, ice or gravity. Deposition drops it in a new place.
- Rivers carve valleys and canyons (the Colorado River and the Grand Canyon) and build floodplains and deltas where they meet the sea (the Nile Delta).
- Glaciers carve U-shaped valleys and, in the sea, fjords (Norway). Wind builds dunes in deserts.
- Basic landforms: mountain, plateau (high flat land), plain (low flat land), valley, peninsula (land nearly surrounded by water), island.
Practice
Which process carries weathered material from one place to another?
Erosion is the movement of rock and soil by water, wind, ice or gravity.
A river carries sediment to the sea and drops it, forming a fan-shaped area of new land. This landform is a
Deltas form where a river slows and deposits sediment at its mouth.
Which landform was most likely carved by glaciers?
Glaciers cut deep U-shaped valleys; when flooded by the sea, they become fjords.
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