1. Unit 3: Reshaping the Land Vocabulary

2. Mechanical Weathering
The type of weathering in which rock is physically broken into smaller pieces.

3. Abrasion
The grinding away of rock by other rock particles carried in water, ice, or wind.

4. Ice Wedging
Process that splits rock when water seeps into cracks, then freezes and expands.

5. Chemical Weathering
The process that breaks down rock through chemical changes.

6. Oxidation
A chemical change in which a substance combines with oxygen, as then iron oxidizes, forming rust.

7. Permeable
Characteristic of a material that is full of tiny, connected air spaces that water can seep through.

8. Bedrock
The solid layer of rock beneath the soil

9. Soil Horizon
The layer of soil that differs in color and texture from the layers above or below it.cc

10. Topsoil
Mixture of humus, clay, and other minerals that forms the crumbly, topmost layer of soil

11. Natural Resource
Anything in the environment that humans use.

12. Soil Conservation
The management of soil to prevent its destruction.

13. Mass Movement
Any one of several processes by which gravity moves sediment downhill.

14. Runoff
Water that flows over the ground surface rather than soaking in the ground.

15. Tributary
A stream or smaller river that feeds into a main river.

16. Groundwater
Water that fills the cracks and spaces in underground soil and rocks layers.

17. Continental Glacier
A glacier that covers much of a continent or large island.

18. Moraine
A ridge formed by the till deposited at the edge of a glacier.

19. Till
The sediment deposited directly by a glacier.

20. Deflation
Wind erosion that removes surface materials.

21. Subsoil
The layer of soil beneath the topsoil that contains mostly clay and other minerals.