CHAPTER 16 Exploring with Google Earth

To complete these problems, first read the chapter. When you are finished, go to LaunchPad and open the Exploring with Google Earth file for this chapter. Click on the “Workbook Problems” folder to “fly” to each of the problems listed below and answer the questions. Be sure to keep your “Borders and Labels” layer activated. Refer to Appendix 4 if you need help using Google Earth.

PROBLEM 16.1 Drainage pattern identification: This drainage pattern, which resembles the branching network of a tree’s limbs, is the most common one. (Hint: For help with this problem and Problems 16.2–16.4, see Figure 16.7.)

PROBLEM 16.2 Drainage pattern identification: This type of drainage pattern is common at high latitudes.

PROBLEM 16.3 Drainage pattern identification: This type of drainage pattern is common on mountains. Notice that the circular dark green area is forested land protected by a nature reserve. The surrounding lighter green vegetation is agricultural land.

PROBLEM 16.4 Drainage pattern identification: This type of drainage pattern occurs where layers of sedimentary rocks are compressed, creating structural basins and ridges.

PROBLEM 16.5 This landform is the result of a stream cutting into the bedrock below. Zoom in close to the surface.

PROBLEM 16.6 This placemark lands on Victoria Falls in Africa. This spectacular feature formed where a stream flows over an escarpment. You can activate the 3D Buildings layer in the sidebar menu for greater relief.

PROBLEM 16.7 This placemark lands on Rio Juruá in Brazil, which will be the focus of Problems 16.7–16.10. Many streams, this one included, develop this looping, sinuous pattern on flat floodplains. (Hint: For help with these problems, see Figure 16.29.)

PROBLEM 16.8 This placemark lands on Rio Juruá in Brazil.

PROBLEM 16.9 This placemark lands on Rio Juruá in Brazil.

PROBLEM 16.10 This placemark lands on Rio Juruá in Brazil.

PROBLEM 16.11 This placemark features the confluence of the Amazon River (to the south) and the Rio Negro (to the north) in Brazil. Use the compass in the upper right of the screen to note which way is north.

PROBLEM 16.12 This is Salmon Falls Creek. The surface bedrock in the region of this placemark is volcanic.

PROBLEM 16.13 This is Salmon Falls Creek, the same water body featured in Problem 16.12. Notice that there are large meanders that are sunken into canyons. Within those large meanders, the active stream forms smaller meanders.

PROBLEM 16.14 This placemark features Makgadikgadi Pans in southern Africa, among the world’s largest salt flats. The pans are inhospitable in the dry season. In the rainy season, however, they become shallow, saline lakes that support plants and tens of thousands of migratory birds and animals such as zebras and wildebeests.

PROBLEM 16.15 These branching canyons in the Namib Desert in Namibia are working their way northward.

PROBLEM 16.16 These landforms are found in Death Valley, California. They form as ephemeral streams emerge from steep-sided canyons and drop their sediments onto a flat plain or valley. Notice the two-lane highway that skirts around the contour of one of the landforms.

PROBLEM 16.17 This placemark features the Kaskawulsh River in Kluane National Park and Reserve, Yukon Territory, Canada. The stream is choked with sediments from glacial erosion upstream from the placemark.

PROBLEM 16.18 This is the Volga River delta in Russia, Europe’s largest delta. It was set aside as a nature reserve in the early 1900s, and as a result, there is little human development.

PROBLEM 16.19 This placemark lies in the center of a small drainage basin called Corral Canyon in Southern California. Fire activity is high in this area; as a result, many ridges are topped with firebreak roads that prevent the spread of fire by removing vegetation. Here, the firebreak roads coincide with the edges of the drainage basin and neatly outline the basin.

PROBLEM 16.20 This placemark is south of Provo, Utah. Be sure that the three markers in this problem’s folder are active. Marker 1 marks the Price River, and marker 2 marks the San Rafael River. Both streams flow from west to east through a large anticlinal ridge called the San Rafael Swell, which formed about 60 million to 40 million years ago.