This document provides an introduction to describing natural landscapes. It discusses key components of natural landscapes including variations within a landscape from climatic, tectonic and erosion processes. It also addresses how human activities and cultural perspectives can impact natural landscapes. Settings like the Amazon Basin and Tongariro Volcanic Centre in New Zealand are given as examples. The formation of different landforms through geological processes like folding, faulting and volcanism are explained. Erosion, transportation and deposition processes are also summarized.

1. Introduction to Natural Landscapes AS90331 Explain a Natural Landscape

2. Assessment Specifications Variations within a natural landscape This refers to how and why features of the environment have spatial variation within the landscape area How a landscape evolves and changes, which refers to: Climatic processes Tectonic and other internal processes Erosion, transportation, deposition and other surface processes.

3. The effect of cultural perspectives and human activities on a natural landscape This refers to particular ways in which groups of people interpret and explain landscapes through their knowledge, practices and beliefs

4. Settings Continental Scale Setting The Amazon Basin New Zealand Setting Tongariro Volcanic Centre

5. What is a Natural Landscape? View the following images and state whether you consider them to be natural landscapes

8. Defining Natural Landscapes What do we mean by natural? Parts of the environment that are present within it without the influence of people What do we mean by landscape? All the features of the environment that can be seen or observed

9. Describing a Landscape Concentrating on a couple of the images we have already looked at, how can we describe the landscape in more detail?

12. Elements of a Landscape Relief: The height and shape of the land, and the processes that have formed it over geological time Climate: the average weather conditions over a long period of time, and the processes causing these conditions. This includes rainfall, temperature, sunshine hours, wind and humidity

13. Soils: weathered or eroded material produced from rocks. Of interest are type, fertility, and drainage Biotic System: the plants and animals in a particular landscape and their effect on it.

14. Interaction Model RELIEF SOILS CLIMATE BIOTIC SYSTEM

15. Relief Patterns and Processes Match the words from the list below with their correct definition MOUNTAINS PLATEAUS ROLLING HILL COUNTRY ROUGH HILL COUNTRY PLAINS Areas of flat, low, land (under 200m in elevation); mostly found in coastal areas. Area of flat upland; the most prominent one of these in NZ is in the central North Island Gently undulating hill country, found mostly in the North Island Steep land that rises much higher than the surrounding landscape, either as a single feature or in a chain or range over 1000m or over 340m from summit to base. Makes up 70% of the South Island so is the dominant landform type in NZ Areas lower than 1000m with rugged relief and often steep land, common in the North Island

16. Answers PLAINS: Areas of flat, low, land (under 200m in elevation); mostly found in coastal areas. PLATEAUS: Area of flat upland; the most prominent one of these in NZ is in the central North Island ROLLING HILL COUNTRY: Gently undulating hill country, found mostly in the North Island MOUNTAINS: Steep land that rise much higher than the surrounding landscape, either as a single feature or in a chain or range over 1000m or over 340m from summit to base. Makes up 70% of the South Island so is the dominant landform type in NZ ROUGH HILL COUNTRY: Areas lower than 1000m with rugged relief and often steep land, common in the North Island

17. New Zealand’s Landform Patterns Use an appropriate graphing technique to display the information on the next slide regarding the pattern of New Zealand’s landforms Make sure you use all of the correct graphing conventions for the type of graph you have chosen

18. New Zealand’s Landform Patterns 9 0 9 12 70 South Island 5 6 26 45 18 North Island 8 3 15 25 49 New Zealand % Plains % Plateau % Rolling Hill Country % Rough Hill Country % Mountains

19. Cycle of Landforming Land Building Processes Folding Faulting Volcanism Land Modifying Processes Erosion Weathering Transportation Deposition Causes of erosion Glaciers Rivers Wind Waves Freezing and Thawing

20. In places where the surface is fractured or broken these convection current move large sections of the Earth’s crust known as tectonic plates . This process is known as plate tectonics . Volcanism occurs when descending oceanic rock escapes through the surface through a weakness. Typical features of volcanic landscapes include: mud pools, geysers, hot springs, etc.

21. Land Building Processes - Volcanism The core of the earth is extremely hot, estimated to be about 7000 °C . As you move towards the surface of the earth, this temperature cools . This temperature differential forms a convection current , where molten rock heats up away from the core and as it nears the surface cools and sinks, with this sequence being repeated over and over again.

22. Land Building Processes – Folding and Faulting Faulting is the movement of the earth’s plates along zones of weakness. It is the result of pressure building up and causing old brittle rocks to shatter and move in blocks. The land shifts upwards , downwards , or sideways . In NZ they tend to run in a NE to SW direction; the largest example of which is known as the Alpine Fault

23. Folding is the process by which sedimentary rock is pushed and squeezed as hard surrounding rock is moved by plate tectonics. The soft rock twists and bends into folds rather than fracture like hard rock would. This creates a more rolling landscape than what faulting does.

24. Erosion, Transportation, and Deposition Erosion is the general term that is used to describe the wearing down and subsequent transportation of the earth’s surface The Three stages are: Erosion Transportation Deposition

25. Different types of erosion Fluvial Caused by the action of rivers Glacial Caused by the action glaciers Freeze-Thaw Caused by the freezing and melting of water in rocks. As water freezes and can cause rocks to shatter Aeolian Caused by the movement of wind Waves Caused by the action of waves

26. Climate Processes The Water Cycle Interception Infiltration Runoff Precipitation Groundwater flow Stream and river flow Movement of atmospheric moisture Evaporation Ocean Evaporation from land, vegetation, rivers, and lakes Storage areas (lake, wetland) 1 7 6 5 4 3 2 11 10 9 8 Copy the diagram above and use the list from the column to label correctly each of the different processes involved in the Water Cycle

27. Answers Interception Infiltration Groundwater flow Stream and river flow Ocean Evaporation Movement of atmospheric moisture Storage areas (lake, wetland) Evaporation from land, vegetation, rivers, and lakes Precipitation Runoff

28. Types of Rainfall Orographic Moist air forced to rise Rain shadow on leeward side Air warms as it descends Air cools as it rises Rain Dry

29. Convectional Warm Surface Warm moist air rising Altitude Convectional Rainfall

30. Frontal – Warm Front Drizzle Warmer air nimbostratus Frontal surface Wide band of heavy rain Cooler air (denser)

31. Frontal – Cold Front Narrow bank of heavy rain Cumulus Cumulonimbus Squalls Cold air (denser) Warm air (less dense) Frontal surface

32. Climate Controls Latitude: Generally the closer to the Equator the warmer the temperature. This is because light at the Equator hits at less of an angle than at the poles. Northland at 36°S has an average temp of 14°C, whereas Southland at 46°S has an average temp of 10°C. Altitude: Saturated air cools at the rate of 0.6°C per 100 vertical metres. Relief: This can cause orographic rain (e.g. West Coast South Island) and cause wind funnelling (e.g. Cook Strait).

33. Size of landform: Small landmasses have climates moderated by the sea whereas large landmasses have extremes of climate. Proximity to oceans: Sea breezes moderate the climate Ocean current: Air masses passing over warm ocean create warm breezes and vice versa. Wind and Pressure systems: The world is divided into different zones of pressure. The Equator has low pressure, and the Poles have high pressure. In general, the direction of wind movement is from high to low pressure air masses.

34. Soil Patterns and Processes Soil is material on the earth’s surface produced by rocks (parent material) which has been altered by physical, chemical and biological weathering. There are 4 factors that contribute to soil development. They are:

35. Climate : particularly temperature and precipitation Relief : in particular slope angle. Steep slopes will have poor shallow soils as erosion easily takes place. On flatter slopes alluvium (material deposited by rivers during flood periods) can build up to produce good quality soils Parent Material : includes the structure and mineral composition of the original rock weathered to form the soil Time : the length of time elapsed while the soil is being formed is important in characterising soils. Young soils will reflect the characteristics of the parent material, whereas older rocks will develop their own characteristics under other influences.

36. Soil Layers O: Organic material at the surface A Horizon: the topsoil; contains some weathered material and organic elements, is rich in humus B Horizon: contains weathered parent and animal material and some organic elements; material leached from the A Horizon maybe deposited C Horizon: the subsoil (weathered parent material) D Horizon – the parent material