Key Concepts in Geography, Environment, and Earth Science
Desertification
Desertification is the transformation of land used for crops or pastures into desert or near-desert lands. Desertification is moderate when lost productivity is between 10% and 25%. It is severe if the loss is between 25% and 50% and very severe if greater. The process of desertification is observed in many parts of the world and is a serious threat to the environment and agricultural performance in some areas.
Geography
Geography is the science that studies the Earth, the livelihoods of people, the societies that live on it, and the territories, landscapes, places, or regions that form as they relate to each other.
Human Geography
Human geography is a social science focused on the study of societies and their territories, including the study of humans and their reactions with their surroundings.
Economic Geography
Economic geography studies the economic activities taking place in different spaces, the location of economic activities, and economic problems.
Regional Geography
For some geographers, regional geography is a discipline in charge of the study of complex synthetic geography.
Eratosthenes
Eratosthenes was a famous mathematician, astronomer, and geographer of Greek origin, probably Chaldean.
Cartography
Cartography is the set of studies and scientific and technical operations involved in the formation or analysis of maps, relief models, and globes representing the Earth, or part thereof, or any part of the universe.
Forestry
Forestry is the cultivation of forests or mountains and, by extension, the science that deals with this crop. That is, techniques that apply to forest stands to gain from them a continuous production of goods and services demanded by society.
Floods in the Orinoco Basin
The alternation of a six-month period defined by abundant rain with another of drought determines a large territory flooded during part of the year, and the blooming and withering of vegetation during the other.
Plate Tectonics
Plate tectonics refers to the movement and division of the world into several plates. Such collisions may cause natural phenomena such as earthquakes.
Source of Plate Tectonics
The origin of the plates is due to convection currents within the mantle, which fragment the lithosphere. Convection currents are circulatory patterns that occur in fluids that are heated at their base. Upon heating, the bottom of the fluid expands. This change in density produces a buoyant force that causes the hot fluid to ascend. Upon reaching the surface, it cools down and is reheated, establishing a self-organized circular motion.
Plate Boundaries
These are the edges of a plate, and it is here where most tectonic activity occurs (earthquakes, mountain building, volcanic activity), as that is where interaction occurs between plates. There are three kinds of boundaries:
- Divergent: These are limits within which the plates are separated from each other and, therefore, magma emerges from deeper regions (e.g., the Mid-Atlantic ridge formed by the separation of the Eurasian and North American plates and the African and South American plates).
- Convergent: These are limits within which a plate collides with another, forming a subduction zone (the oceanic plate sinks beneath the continental plate) or an orogenic belt (if the plates collide and compress). They are also known as “active edges”.
- Transform: These are boundaries where the plates slide one over the other along a transform fault.
Environmental Effects of Fossil Fuels
The burning of fossil fuels is responsible for major environmental problems that are of great importance. Examples include the accumulation of greenhouse gases, acidification, air pollution, water pollution, damage to the surface layers, and tropospheric ozone. These are signs of environmental problems caused by the release of pollutants that are usually naturally present in the structure of fuel. Currently, the burning of oil is responsible for 30% of carbon dioxide emissions into the air. Natural gas releases carbon dioxide because of its structure of methane. The longest emissions are caused by burning coal. Oil may end up in soil or water in its raw form, for example, in times of war or due to oil leaks. This has caused major disasters in the world. Why do we use fossil fuels extensively yet? The question is simple: because it is cheaper than other alternatives that exist today. Some environmental scientists predict that fossil fuel prices will increase over time due to their scarcity in the market. This can cause a shift to alternative sources of technology.
Fishing
Fishing is the art of drawing from water and catching fish and other aquatic species for human consumption. Originally the livelihood of some coastal and island populations. Currently, several industrialized fishing systems exist, although some countries still use traditional fishing gear or craft to obtain hydro-biological resources.