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Raised rock slabs or plates of varying thickness, mostly resulting from the buckling of laminae, plates, and slabs. These forms are generally cracked by tectonic activity, although decreases in lithostatic pressure through unloading, or, more rarely, from surficial expansion of plates caused by intense heat. Smaller plates and slabs may be changed in part through freeze-thaw. A-tents are also known as pop-ups, but ...

Not living, non-biological, usually describing factors in an ecosystem: atmospheric gases, humidity, salinity, soil mineral particles, water, and so on. An ...

Loss of snow and ice from a glacier by *sublimation, melting, and evaporation; and from the *calving of icebergs, and avalanches. In temperate and subpolar regions melting is the major form of ablation; in the Antarctic, it is calving. The rate of loss varies with air temperature, relative humidity, wind speed, insolation, aspect, and the nature of the surface. In snowfields, ablation includes snow removed by the wind, and is affected by aspect, depth of snow, and the nature of the underlying surface....

An influential American human geographer who co-authored a pioneering text on the *spatial science approach (Spatial Organization: The Geographer’s View of the World...

The first or earliest known inhabitants of a *place or *region. Aboriginals are often called *indigenous people...

A member of an indigenous people existing in a land before invasion or colonization from outside. For Canadian aboriginal peoples, see ...

Also known as corrasion, this is the grinding away of bedrock by fragments of rock which may be incorporated in ice (...

The density of the water vapour present in a mixture of air and water vapour. Cold air cannot contain as much water vapour as warm air, so has a lower absolute humidity than warm air. Low absolute humidity results in more evaporation than in air with high absolute humidity....

The movement of a crustal plate in relation to a fixed point, such as a hot spot, or latitude and longitude....

The act or process of isolating a phenomenon and removing it from its real context of existence. It has a mental and a material aspect. The former involves carving the world up into categories or units (...

The selection and conceptualization of a phenomenon, or some aspect of it; a way of viewing a real world object, usually a simplification—such as a ...

The total number of individuals of a certain species present in an area, generally estimated by sampling methods (such as capture–recapture), and which may vary according to competition, predation, and resources....

Of or belonging to the ocean depths, especially below 2000 m. The abyssopelagic zone is that part of deep lakes, oceans, or seas characterized by specific forms of plankton and nekton which inhabit open water, and the ...

A description of universities, academics, and academic knowledge that suggests these are increasingly being driven by commercial values and goals. The term was popularized by American education analysts Slaughter and Rhoades. It challenges the long-held belief that higher education is—or should be—a public good, not a commodity for purely private purchase and benefit. In human geography it is especially associated with discussions about the pedagogic and wider role of ...

A factor which increases the momentum of a boom or slump in an economy, so that a small change in demand, for example, may lead to a greater industrial growth (or decline)....

Connection or entry to a service. A. Sen (1999) measures access to advantage by one’s access to basic needs: satisfying goods—like food; freedoms—as in a labour market; and capabilities. S. W. Allard (...

The ease with which goods and services in one location can be accessed by people living in another location. Transportation and communications media are key infrastructures in this regard, with availability, distance, time, and cost being principal constraints, along with structural barriers such as age, gender, disability, and class. Access to goods and services is often viewed as a key measure of social equity—that is, the greater access one has, the better off one is....

The ease of approach to one location from other locations: in terms of the distance travelled, the cost of travel, or the time taken. The improvement of infrastructures produces an increase in accessibility that positively affects the competitiveness of the economic system and favours the appearance of specialization benefits and scale economies. In fact, regions with high levels of accessibility to the locations of input materials and markets tend to be more productive and competitive than peripheral and remote regions; see Gutiérrez in R. Kitchin and N. Thrift, eds (...

Complying with; thus, accordant drainage has evolved in conformity with the underlying geological structure: domes show a radial pattern, for example. The ...

1 The growth of land by the offshore deposition of sediment, forming *spits and *tombolos. Accretion is most active in ...