Water and Wind and Ice, Oh MY!

By: Heather Jo Reynolds

4.3.5 Describe how waves, wind, water, and glacial ice

shape and reshape the Earth's land surface by erosion of rock and soil in some areas and

depositing them in other areas.

Erosion ProjectWe are going to put a few rocks in this painter’s tray followed by sand.

When I turn the fan on and face it towards the tray, what do you think will happen to the sand? What will happen to the rocks?

Lets try it…What happened?

Now we are going to pour water starting at the top.

What happened to the sand? What happened to the rocks?

Can you think of an example where you might have seen this on a larger scale?

Wind

No, these did not suddenly appear . These rocks took 100’s of 1,000’s of years to look like this. You can tell by the odd shapes or ingrained pattern in the rock from where the wind whipped past it again and again.

Almost like a game of Jenga, the wind pulls weak parts of the rock off the original mass, piece by piece, microscopic bit by bit. Getting into the tiniest of tiny crevices to create some very interesting forms.

WavesWaves act much like wind does. It cancrash with great force into a cliff, carryingtiny pieces back into the ocean with it.Over a great deal of time the cliff will changefrom the wear and tear controlled by the wavescrashing into it again and again over and over. Finally leaving it in tiny sand partials, aka a beach.

The Grand Canyon

The Grand Canyon is a result of alldifferent forms of erosion over millionsof years and is continually being shapedas we speak.

Glaciers

Glaciers begin to form when snow remains in the same area year round. Each year, new layers of snow bury and compress the previous layers. Gradually the layers turn into ice. For most glaciers, this process takes over a hundred years. With the bodies of ice being so massive they have the ability to change landscapes around them from either taking land with them or pushing the land out of its way.

The Great Lakes

• Approximately 1,000,000 years ago, glaciers up to 6,500 ft thick covered most of the mid west. These monstrous ice formations inched their way forward and backward until finally withdrawing 10,000 years ago, gouges that were created were filled with water from the melting ice. These gouges were then later named the Great Lakes.

Appalachian Mountains

• These mountains are among the oldest mountains in the world. They have eroded over the years from the elements, so they aren't very high, they don't even have snow on them in the summertime anymore.

Sources

http://www.swmidirectory.org/History_of_Lake_Michigan.html

http://nsidc.org/glaciers/questions/formed.html

http://www.jamestown-ri.info/northern_appalachians.htm

http://www.indianastandardsresources.org/files/sci/sci_4_3_5.pdf

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/crevice

Glossary• Ingrain: 1. Firmly established; deep-seated: ingrained prejudice; the

ingrained habits of a lifetime. 2. Worked deeply into the texture or fiber

• Erosion: 1. The process of eroding or the condition of being eroded: erosion of the beach; progressive erosion of confidence in our legal system; erosion of the value of the dollar abroad.

2. The group of natural processes, including weathering, dissolution, abrasion, corrosion, and transportation, by which

material is worn away from the earth's surface.

• Compress: 1. To press together 2. To make more compact by or as if by pressing.

• Gouge: 1. A scooping or digging action, as with such a chisel. 2. A groove or hole scooped with or as if with such a chisel.

• Crevice: 1. A narrow crack or opening; a fissure or cleft.