1. “THERE CAN BE NO GEOGRAPHY WITHOUT PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY!” “GEOGRAPHY IS A LIGHT IN THE MIND NOT A LOAD ON THE MEMORY!”

2. The following has been used to describe PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY: the basis the groundwork background As you read the next few slides think of how each point comes into your life from time to time (eg. History, travel, leisure, work)

3. Physical Geography concerns itself with: The Shape and Form of the Earth erosion rivers, glaciers mountains, plains earthquakes, volcanoes - natural disasters The Make - Up of the Earth rocks and minerals The Seas & Oceans water and fish

4. The Atmosphere climate and weather Soils and Vegetation plant life, farming The Role of the Earth in the Solar System planets, stars The Role of Humans in all of the above how humans interact with all of the above

5. How Humans interact with their Physical and Natural Environment is a key topic that will appear throughout the course. Humans interact with things that are not alive like rocks and minerals and mountains - abiotic. Humans interact with the living things on the earth like other humans, animals and plants - biotic. There has never really been a balance in these interactions. They have always favoured humans. We are now beginning to pay for this imbalance.

6. Physical Geography can be broadly defined as the study of the make up of the earth and its relationship to the life and needs of humans. In order to understand the place of humans on earth we must know something about his/her surroundings (where one lives -- one’s environment.)

7. Before we can study humans themselves -- (that is their culture, their languages, their religions, their economies, their history) -- we must look at how humans ADAPT to the earth’s conditions or how humans try to CONTROL and take advantage of these conditions. These earth conditions are also studied in this course.

8. Physical Geography concerns itself with the stage that the earth has set up for humans. We must understand the air, the water, the land and then place on top of the land (or below water) plants, animals and humans. Then we watch how all of this get along with one another.

9. “Everything relates to Geography. Read the list below and connect the item to Physical Geography: construction of a building growing of crops a ski trip a vacation in the sun a boating trip the location of a city the location of a factory flying in an air plane Star Exploration your health

10. Physical Geography is broken up into what we call THE EARTH SCIENCES: ASTRONOMY - study of heavenly bodies - solar system - earth’s role GEOLOGY - composition and structure of the earth - study of rocks and minerals GEOMORPHOLOGY - shapes of the earth - earthquakes, volcanoes, rivers, glaciers etc. - plate tectonics - erosion

11. ECOLOGY - study of life and the environment (interactions) - pollution - Ecozones, Biomes or Biosphere OCEANOGRAPHY - oceans and shorelines - Marine Biology CLIMATOLOGY - types of world climate - the climate of the earth METEOROLOGY - study of weather - mapping weather - study of storms

12. PEDOLOGY - study of soils BOTANY (FLORA) - plant life - vegetation - agriculture - biology ZOOLOGY (FAUNA) - study of animal life - animals and their environment MINERALOGY (Minerals), PALAEONTOLOGY (Fossils), PETROLOGY (Rocks), and BIOLOGY (Living Things) are some others.

13. There are more sciences as you break these down even further. For example, someone who studies volcanoes is called a VULCANOLOGIST. You probably have noticed that Physical Geography is very broad and touches upon many subjects.

14. The main focus of physical geography is on the LIFE LAYER of the earth: a shallow zone of the lands and oceans containing most of the world’s Organic Life (also called Biosphere). All of the earth’s systems interact to support the Biosphere. This is where we will begin our study of Physical Geography.

15. Two diagrams illustrating the Biosphere (life layer) of the earth

16. Here is another way of looking at how the Biosphere is connected to the earth.

17. As you can see from the previous slides the earth is made up of a number of spheres, the most important are: The Atmosphere The Lithosphere The Hydrosphere The Biosphere

18. The many spheres of the earth: Can you name them?

19. The Hydrosphere: 70% of the earth’s surface is covered by water If the earth was totally flat, earth would be covered by water at a depth of 12,000 ft. It fills in the lower parts of the Lithosphere With water it interconnects the Atmosphere with the Lithosphere Cryosphere is the frozen hydrosphere. This even includes the frozen ground usually called permafrost The Atmosphere: A gaseous shell that surrounds the earth, made mostly of oxygen, nitrogen, carbon and hydrogen it dictates the climate: this governs the exchange of heat and water between the atmosphere and the ground Divided up into other spheres; Stratosphere, Troposphere etc.

20. The Lithosphere: Thin outer crust that surrounds the earth. Platform of life the Lithosphere also supplies valuable nutrients that pass from rock to soil to plants and finally to us. Considered to be a brittle shell of solid rock. Under force it could be cracked, warped, buckled. The average depth is about 10 miles. Under the oceans, depth is about 3 miles. Floats on top of the Lithosphere (more on this later in the course)

21. These spheres interact with one another to create The Biosphere or the earth’s Life Layer. It is the Biosphere that makes the earth unique among the other planets we know of. The Biosphere can be further broken down into what are called Biomes or Ecozones or Ecoregions. The names have changed over the years. These Biomes on the earth represent areas that have a similar plant and animal species and exist under a similar soil, vegetation and climate. In turn each biome has similar human activity on them. We will learn more about these areas in a more detailed unit later on.

22. Biomes or Ecozones are usually distinguished by their vegetation cover. Biomes are really a combination of climate regions, soil regions, vegetation regions and landform regions. Geographers recognize five primary biome types: Forest Grassland Savanna Desert Tundra These can be of course further broken down and depending on what book you have the names may change.

23. World Biome map based on vegetation zones: Planet Earth, by Gary Birchall (John Wilely and Sons)

24. The catalyst that creates the Biosphere from the other spheres is the Sun. The sun gives the earth energy in the form of Solar Radiation, sometimes called Insolation. The next two slides have diagrams that illustrate how the earth distributes this energy. This distribution is called the Earth’s Energy Balance or Budget.

25. Note: Yellow represents the energy coming from the sun. Orange represents what is absorbed and Red represents what is reflected back into space - called The Albedo. Introducing Physical Geography by Strahler and Strahler.

26. The earth either absorbs the energy and converts it into other types of energy like: - Fossil Fuels - Temperature and Precipitation - Photosynthesis - Winds and Pressure - The Hydrologic Cycle (see picture next slide) - ETC. Or it reflects back into space - Albedo.

27. Introducing Physical Geography by Strahler and Strahler.

28. One of the keys to life on earth is the fact that our planet has water in all three states. Of course it is the sun that allows this to happen.

29. A good way to understand how the spheres interact with one another is to think of the earth as a SPACESHIP. Spaceships are closed systems (Think of the movie Apollo 13 or a project in Arizona called Biosphere 2, where they actually built a closed system ( http://www.bio2.edu/ ). Spaceships must must operate in all kinds of environments - friendly and hostile - so they must carry with them all the things needed to support life:

30. They need sufficient quantities of: - air - water - food - heat The spaceship must recycle these things and use them over and over in an efficient manner. The ship also needs an efficient waste disposal system Each of these items mentioned above are vital. They must be in perfect balance. If one of the above should fail, then life will die.

31. The earth is like this spaceship, but only larger. The earth is travelling in space (a hostile environment), but it carries all the things necessary for life. Recently the spaceship earth seems to have a crew that doesn’t really care about maintaining these LIFE SUPPORT SYSTEMS. The crew takes them for granted. A few years ago, the crew (humans) was small, our technology was limited, our ability to damage the spaceship was also limited.

32. But today, we can no longer take the systems that make life possible on earth for granted. We have grown to an incredible size (6 billion). Our technology is constantly presenting new threats to the environment: air pollution oil spills garbage waste disposal toxic waste CFCs carbon dioxide, etc...

33. We must learn all we can about these factors that make up our life support systems. That is where Physical Geography comes in. We must prevent the destruction of the physical environment. THE FUTURE OF THE EARTH IS AT RISK!

34. Let’s begin our understanding of the spaceship earth by studying from outside and off the earth’s surface and slowly make our way to the inside of the earth. In other words we will begin by studying the earth and it’s role in the universe, galaxy and solar system. We will then touch down on the earth and begin studying the planet itself. Finally we will place humans on the earth and studying their involvement! Let us begin!

35. THE END!