Figure Study Aids

1. Describe each of the spheres - lithosphere, hydrosphere, atmosphere, biosphere. How do you distinguish each sphere from the others? Where is it? Does it intergrade with the other spheres?

2. Give an example of an process or activity that expresses the interaction shown by each of the red arrows.
1. Hydrosphere and Atmosphere -
2. Atmosphere and Biosphere -
3. Biosphere and Lithosphere -
4. Lithosphere and hydrosphere -
5. Hydrosphere and Biosphere -
6. Atmosphere and Lithosphere -

3. Describe how each of the relationships you listed above might change:
1. From one region to another.
2. From one month or season to another
3. From one year to another at a given location.

Figure 2.2 - How subsystems of the four spheres interact at different places to create regional systems. This diagram could also show different environments on the north side of a hill compared to the south side of the hill.

1. Characterize the four corner blocks of the diagram - Atmospheric Subsystem, etc. Figure 2.1 calls them "spheres", but they are called "subsystems" in Figure 2.2. Are these the same thing?

2. How does the Regional Subsystem relate to the four other subsystems? What is the figure showing you here?

3. Give an example of how the four spheres/subsystems operate together to create different types of landscapes in different places. For example, can you describe how the landscape shown on the cover of the textbook is created and changed through time?

4. Have you seen a National Geographic Special program on TV, watched the Discover Channel, or The Learning Channel recently? If so, you probably saw different landscapes being described or shown; what were they like? Or try this: What natural processes (we'll deal with the effect of people on landscapes later) make the landscape around Carbondale different from the landscape around your home town, or a place you have visited recently? Write a short paragraph about how different combinations of the four spheres/subsystems make each place different.

Figure 3.2 -Paralles and meridians on a globe. How the latitude and longitude of a place is specified.

1. Distinguish between the parallels of latitude and meridians of longitude on a globe. Specify the reference latitude (equator) and reference longitude (prime meridian). Distinguish South Latitudes from North Latitudes; West Longitudes from East Longitudes.

2. You know that the tilt of the earth's axis (the axis around the earth spins) is 23.5 degrees. Relate the tilt to the Tropic of Cancer (23.5 deg N) and the Tropic of Capricorn (23.5 deg S); relate it to the Arctic Circle (66.5 deg N) and the Antarctic Circle (66.5 deg S).

3. See if you can state the principle behind the two "Circles" and the two "Tropics". What would the latitude of the Tropic of Cancer be if the tilt of the earth's axis were 20 deg.? What would it be if the earth were not tilted on its axis at all? What would it be if the earth's axis were tilted 90 deg?

Figure 5.6-Time zones of the earth

1. Time zones divide the earth into 24 segments or zones that run generally north-south. That is, they generally follow meridians (lines of longitude). However, the boundaries of time zones have been adjusted for political purposes, e.g., the Central Time Zone follows the Indiana-Illinois boundary. Look at the time zone for the Peoples Republic of China; the continent of Africa. What rule applies to establishing the time zones of these places?

2. If the distance around the globe in terms of degrees is 360 degrees, and there are 24 hours in a day, each time zone is nominally 15 degrees wide (360/24 = 15). Look at the numbers at the bottom of Figure 5.6. They show that time zones are centered on meridians at 15 degree intervals. What meridian runs through the Central Time Zone? If it is 15 degrees wide, what meridian is the eastern side of the Central Time Zone; what is the western side?

3. Time for the earth is specified two ways. We are accustomed to thinking of the time in a particular time zone, e.g., it's 9:30 a.m. in Carbondale, in the Central Time Zone. But that means that people in different time zones think it's a different time. The other way to account time is to establish a place whose time will be considered the time around the world, a universal time. Time in Greenwich, England, where the prime meridian is located is used as the universal time.

4. Look at the numbers along top of Figure 5.6. These are the numbers of hours you add or subtract to convert local time to Universal Time, or Greenwich Mean Time (abbreviated UTC). If it is 9 a.m. in Carbondale, what time is it in London? What time is it in San Francisco? What rule would you use to convert time in your time zone to time in any other time zone?