mapping
Getting Creative - Geologic Map Day Learning Activities
“America the Beautiful” has inspired patriotism in Americans for generations. But few today realize that the song’s lyrics were originally written in the late 1800s by Katharine Lee Bates as a poem — one that she first called “Pike’s Peak.”
Mapping Vertical Movements
This activity uses “flubber” to demonstrate the visco-elastic properties of the Earth’s lithosphere and shows isostatic rebound in action.
Mapping Your Soil
The key properties of soil (physical, biological, and chemical) determine recreation, crop production, range, water/erosion conservation, forestry, and engineering uses of the soil. Soil surveys help us understand how soils differ and how they behave under various land management systems. The heart of a soil survey is the soil map showing the spatial distribution and variability of soils on the landscape.
Surface Processes
Part A: Younger Deposits
Active erosion wears away surface rocks while deposition piles loose sediments on top of existing surfaces. Over time loose sediments may be compacted and cemented, which forms sedimentary rocks. Younger rocks and sediments are also shown on the geologic map. Let’s look for evidence of young rocks and active deposition using the map and other tools.
What Covers Our Land?
Looking at Earth from space is inspiring. All of the colors you see in a satellite image tell you a lot about the world around us. What is on the land around you? Pavement? A grassy lawn? A forest? What covers our land matters because we depend on and pasture to produce food, forests for wood products, plants for clean air, and water to support wildlife.