Almost every landform has a straightforward cause. These ten cover the four agents that do most of the work on the surface of the planet.
Landscapes look permanent because human lifespans are short. Over any longer span, the surface is being taken apart continuously: rock is broken up where it sits, the fragments are carried off by moving water, ice, wind or waves, and they are dropped again wherever the carrying agent slows down. Everything from a river meander to a chalk cliff is a stage in that sequence. What differs between landscapes is which agent dominates and how long it has been at work. Glacial country is unmistakable because ice erodes on all sides at once rather than cutting down a single channel. Limestone country is unmistakable because the rock itself dissolves. The questions below cover erosion and weathering, glacial and river landforms, coastal movement and the deposits left by wind.
Every question in this quiz is listed below with its correct answer and the reasoning behind it. Play first if you would rather not see the answers — or read through as a study sheet.
Play it insteadAnswer: B. Weathering breaks rock down where it sits; erosion carries the pieces away
Why: Frost wedging and root growth do the breaking. A cliff can be deeply rotted and still keep its shape until something arrives to remove the debris.
Answer: A. A broad U shape
Why: Ice scours the sides as well as the floor, whereas a river cuts mainly downward. A fjord is such a valley later drowned by the sea.
Answer: D. A ridge of rock debris dumped by a glacier
Why: Terminal moraines mark how far the ice reached, and much of the low hilly country of northern Europe is built out of them.
Answer: C. Calcium carbonate left behind by dripping water
Why: Rainwater made mildly acidic by carbon dioxide dissolves the rock on the way in and releases it again as the gas escapes, often at a fraction of a millimetre a year.
Answer: B. Karst
Why: It is named after a region on the Slovenian and Italian border. Something like a fifth of the world's ice-free land sits on soluble rock of this kind.
Answer: A. A river cuts through the neck of a meander and abandons the loop
Why: Flow is fastest around the outside of a bend, so meanders migrate sideways until two of them meet. The severed loop then silts up over a few decades.
Answer: D. A river slows as it meets standing water and drops the sediment it was carrying
Why: The name comes from the triangular Greek letter, applied to the Nile by Herodotus. A delta only survives where deposition outpaces waves and currents.
Answer: C. Horizons
Why: The uppermost layer is dark with organic matter, while minerals washed down from above collect in the layers beneath. A mature profile takes thousands of years.
Answer: B. Sideways along the coast, because waves arrive at an angle
Why: Each wave pushes sand obliquely up the beach and gravity pulls it straight back down, giving a zigzag path. Groynes are built across beaches to interrupt it.
Answer: A. Wind carrying fine silt, much of it ground up by glaciers
Why: It stands in a vertical face when cut, which makes it easy to dig into and unusually prone to gullying once the plant cover is stripped.
Staying warm, finding the way home, sleeping safely. Every species faces the same short list, and the answers are inventive.
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