Exploring physical geography
- What Materials Compose Landscapes?
- How Do Rocks Form?
- What Can Happen to a Rock?
- What Are Some Common Sedimentary Rocks?
- What Are Igneous Processes and Rocks?
- What Are Metamorphic Processes and Rocks?
- How Are Different Rock Types Expressed in Landscapes?
- What Controls the Appearance of Landscapes?
- How Are Landscapes Weathered and Eroded?
- How Do Landscapes Record Transport and Deposition by Gravity, Streams, Ice, and Waves?
- How Do Landscapes Record Transport and Deposition by Wind?
- How Do We Infer the Relative Ages of Events?
- How Do We Determine the Ages of Events?
- How Do We Study Ages of Landscapes?
- CONNECTIONS: What Is the Natural History of the Grand Canyon?
- INVESTIGATION: What Is the History of This Landscape?
PLATE TECTONICS AND REGIONAL FEATURES
- What Is Inside Earth?
- What Are the Major Features of Earth?
- Why Do Some Continents Have Matching Shapes?
- What Is the Distribution of Earthquakes, Volcanoes, and Mountain Belts?
- What Causes Tectonic Activity to Occur in Belts?
- What Happens at Divergent Boundaries?
- What Happens at Convergent Boundaries?
- What Happens Along Transform Boundaries?
- Why and How Do Plates Move?
- How Is Paleomagnetism Used to Determine Rates of Seafloor Spreading?
- What Features Form at Oceanic Hot Spots?
- What Features Form at Continental Hot Spots?
- What Are Continents and How Do They Form?
- How Did the Continents Join and Split Apart?
- Where Do Mountain Belts and High Regions Form?
- How Do Internal and External Processes Interact to Form Landscapes?
- CONNECTIONS: Why Is South America Lopsided?
- INVESTIGATION: What Is the Plate Tectonics of This Place?
VOLCANOES, DEFORMATION, AND EARTHQUAKES
- What Is a Volcano?
- How Do Volcanoes Erupt?
- What Volcanic Features Consist of Basalt?
- What Are Composite Volcanoes and Volcanic Domes?
- What Are Calderas?
- What Hazards Are Associated with Volcanoes?
- What Areas Have the Highest Potential for Volcanic Hazards?
- How Are Magmatic Conduits Exposed?
- What Is Deformation and How Is It Expressed in Landscapes?
- How Are Fractures Expressed in Landscapes?
- How Are Folds Expressed in Landscapes?
- How Do Local Mountains and Basins Form?
- What Is an Earthquake?
- Where Do Most Earthquakes Occur?
- What Causes Earthquakes Along Plate Boundaries and Within Plates?
- How Do Earthquakes Cause Damage?
- What Were Some Recent Large Earthquakes?
- CONNECTIONS: What Happened During the Great Alaskan Earthquake of 1964?
- INVESTIGATION: Where Is the Safest Place to Live in This Area?
WEATHERING AND MASS WASTING
- How Does Physical Weathering Affect Earth’s Surface?
- How Does Chemical Weathering Affect Earth’s Surface?
- How Does the Type of Earth Material Influence Weathering?
- How Do Climate, Slope, Vegetation, and Time Influence Weathering?
- How Is Weathering Expressed?
- How Do Caves Form?
- What Is Karst Topography?
- What Controls the Stability of Slopes?
- How Do Slopes Fail?
- How Does Material on Slopes Fall and Slide?
- How Does Material Flow Down Slopes?
- Where Do Slope Failures Occur in the U.S.?
- How Do We Study Slope Failures and Assess the Risk for Future Events?
- CONNECTIONS: What Is Happening with the Slumgullion Landslide in Colorado?
- INVESTIGATION: Which Areas Have the Highest Risk of Slope Failure?
STREAMS AND FLOODING
- What Are Stream Systems?
- How Do Streams Transport Sediment and Erode Their Channels?
- How Do Streams Change Downstream or Over Short Time Frames?
- What Factors Influence Profiles of Streams?
- Why Do Streams Have Curves?
- What Happens in the Headwaters of Streams?
- What Features Characterize Braided Streams?
- What Features Characterize Low-Gradient Streams?
- What Happens When a Stream Reaches Its Base Level?
- How Do Streams Change Over Time?
- What Happens During Stream Incision?
- What Is and What Is Not a Flood?
- What Were Some Devastating Floods?
- How Do We Measure Floods?
- How Do Streams Affect People?
- CONNECTIONS: How Does the Colorado River Change as It Flows Across the Landscape?
- INVESTIGATION: How Would Flooding Affect This Place?
GLACIERS AND GLACIAL LANDFORMS
- What Are Glaciers?
- What Is the Distribution of Present and Past Glaciers?
- How Do Glaciers Form, Move, and Vanish?
- How Do Glaciers Erode, Transport, and Deposit?
- What Are the Landforms of Alpine Glaciation?
- What Are the Landforms of Continental Glaciation?
- What Features Are Peripheral to Glaciers?
- What Is the Evidence for Past Glaciations?
- What Starts and Stops Glaciations?
- CONNECTIONS: What Would Happen to Sea Level if the Ice in West Antarctica Melted?
- INVESTIGATION: How Could Global Warming or a Glacial Period Affect Sea Level in North America?
COASTS AND CHANGING SEA LEVELS
- What Processes Occur Along Coasts?
- What Causes High Tides and Low Tides?
- How Do Waves Form and Propagate?
- How Is Material Eroded, Transported, and Deposited Along Coasts?
- What Landforms Occur Along Coasts?
- How Do Reefs and Coral Atolls Form?
- What Are Some Challenges of Living in a Coastal Zone?
- How Do We Assess the Relative Risks of Different Stretches of Coastline?
- What Happens When Sea Level Changes?
- What Causes Changes in Sea Level?
- CONNECTIONS: What Coastal Damage Was Caused by These Recent Atlantic Hurricanes?
- INVESTIGATION: What Is Happening Along the Coast of This Island?
SOILS
- What Is Soil?
- What Are the Physical Properties of Soil?
- What Is the Role of Water in Soil?
- What Are the Chemical and Biological Properties of Soil?
- How Do Terrain, Parent Material, and Time Affect Soil?
- How Do Climate and Vegetation Affect Soil?
- What Are the Major Layers of Soil?
- What Are the Major Types of Soil?
- What Types of Soils Largely Reflect the Local Setting or Initial Stages in Soil Formation?
- What Types of Soils Form Under Relatively Warm Conditions?
- What Types of Soils Form Under Temperate and Polar Conditions?
- Where Do the Various Soil Types Exist?
- What Are the Causes and Impacts of Soil Erosion?
- CONNECTIONS: How Does Soil Impact the Way We Use Land?
- INVESTIGATION: Where Do These Soils Come From?
ECOSYSTEMS AND BIOGEOCHEMICAL CYCLES
- How Is the Ecosystem Approach Useful in Understanding the Biosphere?
- What Types of Organisms Inhabit Ecosystems?
- What Interactions Occur in Ecosystems?
- How Can Biodiversity Be Assessed?
- How Does Energy Flow Through Ecosystems?
- How Do We Describe Ecosystem Productivity?
- How Do Ecosystems React to Disturbance?
- What Is the Role of Carbon in Ecosystems?
- What Is the Role of Nitrogen in Ecosystems?
- What Is the Role of Phosphorus in Ecosystems?
- What Is the Role of Sulfur in the Environment?
- How Does a Lack of Oxygen Harm Ecosystems?
- CONNECTIONS: How Do Invasive Species Impact U.S. Gulf Coast Ecosystems?
- INVESTIGATION: What Factors Influence the Desert Ecosystems of Namibia in Southern Africa?
BIOMES
- What Biomes Exist on Earth?
- Where Are Each of the Biomes Distributed?
- What Factors Influence Biome Distribution?
- How Does Topography Influence Biomes?
- What Characterizes the Rain Forest Biome?
- How Are Tropical Rain Forests Threatened?
- What Are Deserts and How Do They Form?
- How Do Desert Organisms Survive?
- What Are the Features of the Grassland Biome?
- What Is the Subtropical Scrub and Woodland Biome?
- What Is the Temperate Forest Biome?
- What Characterizes the Boreal Forest Biome?
- What Characterizes the Tundra Biome?
- What Is the Freshwater Biome?
- What Ecosystems Exist in the Saltwater Biome?
- How Do Animal Realms Overlap with Biomes?
- What Is Sustainability?
- CONNECTIONS: How Do the Atmosphere, Hydrosphere, and Cryosphere Interact with Land to Form Biomes?
- INVESTIGATION: What Factors Might Control the Biomes in This Location?