THE GEOGRAPHIC GRID (and CONTOURS)

1. Name the law discovered by Antione
   Lavoisier that created modern chemistry: ___________________________
2. “Work” does what to energy according to the…
   (a) …1st Energy Law?
   (b) …2nd Energy Law?
3. Describe how Mass Conservation can be used by the USGS to indirectly measure the amount of
   water lost by the Salton Sea through evaporation (include a brief explanation of how to measure both Inputs
   and ∆Storage, and thus how to compute Outputs):
4. Ocean water temperatures off CA are _ than off the East Coast in summer.
5. Name the Spherical Grid System that uses
   meridians and parallels to reference the
   location of phenomena such as hurricanes: _______________________________
6. What is the name for the shortest distance between two points on a flat piece-of-paper (or on
   any two-dimensional surface)?

1. An arc along what route is the shortest distance between any two cities on Earth’s nearlyspherical surface (e.g., between LA and London)?

PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY (GEOG 120) NAME: __________________________________ SEC # _
TIM CLIFFE / Grossmont College

1. Consider a missile silo in North Dakota vs. a Russian missile silo near Moscow. Of the following,
   circle all that sit directly in-between these two missile silos:
   Canada Europe The Atlantic The Arctic
2. (a) In what way is the Equator different from all the other Parallels?
   (b) So…the Equator gets uniquely used in the Latitude System in what way?
3. How far north or south can one go in the Latitude System? ____________________
4. San Diego is located at what Latitude, approximately? ____________________
5. How far east or west can one go in the Longitude System?

1. Lines-of-Longitude do what poleward? ____________________
2. “Start at the Equator at the Prime Meridian…Go a quarter-of-the-way around the Earth to the
   West…Then go half-way north toward the North Pole.”
   Where are you now (i.e., what’s your Latitude/Longitude)?

15) On the contour map below (in feet):
(a) Give the "Contour Interval" = _
(b) Give the elevation at F: _ < F <
(c) If "F" were at 105' elevation, then what's missing from the map? ___________
(d) "E" is on a slope that is a(n) -facing slope.
(e) Describe the route from "E"… …to X: ________________________________
…to Y: ______________________________
…to Z: _____________________________
…to G: ______________________________
(f) Consider a ball on a slope:
If you let go, it rolls down, in that-direction-that-is… what? _____
So, on a topo map, how do you know which direction is steepest…
…that direction that goes how relative to the contour lines? Parallel / Perpendicular

(g) So, if you let go of a ball at "E," then it will roll downhill to the beach at: G / X / Y / Z
(h) A ball at "P" would roll to Harbor , while a ball at "Q" would roll to Harbor .
Which ball rolls faster, P or Q? How do you know? _____________________
F
E
Z Y
X
G
P Q
16) Match the following "topographic profiles" (on the right) to the correct "topographic map" (on
the left).