Test #1 Study list

NEW test date Tuesday 29 April

Week 1 ( also extended into week 2)

Geography: meaning of word, what geographers study

Mental maps

Various definitions of PNW

PNW as Oregon, Washington, Idaho in eyes of Jackson and Kimerling

Shared attributes of PNW

Geologic Overview: terranes, continental glaciation, subduction, glacial till, varved clay, sands from outwash plains, deltas, meandering rivers, flood plains, levees as restricting meandering

Nisqually three questions

Regions of the PNW as per Kimerling in Ch1

Robert Thayer Reading:

Postmodern: complex term that applies to our life today, includes fragmented existences, lack of home-places, questioning of traditional authorities, globalization, can be viewed negatively or positively!

Bio-region/life-place: concept of a place with some unifying aspects

Knowledge is compartmentalized in the academic world

Biophilia – affection for living world

Topophilia as affection for land

Sustainability, or ‘sustainable development’: activities can continue and land can be passed on as productive as it was

Life-place as ‘informed by various disciplines’: knowledge and coming from different vantage points

Utopian

Carrying capacity of the land: what it can produce

Alan Thein Durning reading: Waves of resource extraction

Week 3-4 History

Alan Thein Durning reading: Waves of resource extraction

Native American relationship with the land

Manifest destiny

Extractive economies

Fur trade

Mining

Fishing

Logging

Power/irrigation/agriculture

Klondike gold rush

Alaska Yukon Pacific exhibition

Seattle: human changes to site

Tacoma & Seattle: historic and contemporary links both north and south as well as east and west

Coll-Peter Thrush paper

James Clifford paper

Week 4 Climate

Weather and climate: the difference between these two

Climate: Our region (Puget Sound and Coastal region) - moderate climate (small range of temperature unlike continental interior of the US
Rainfall: Unlike most of the US our maximum rainfall is in winter
Our marine west coast climate is different from a Mediterranean Climate:  cooler and wetter in winter, less hot and dry in summer: most of our
plants do not go dormant in summer.
Winter rain is available to the watertable as there is little evaporation
Winds: Local winds: either from S and S/W or N and N/E
Wind basics: warm air rises (think seam from kettle), but then as it rises it condenses and cools.  As air cools it can hold less moisture.
Global circulation: large circulation cells from unequal heating of the earth (heat rises in tropics, descends over poles)  Three major
cells in the northern hemisphere.  Descending air warms and therefore does not drop moisture, descending air as cause for deserts.
Ascending air over the tropics can be seen as a band of cloud on satellite images (cause of rain forests)
Converging air in our region along the polar front.  Warm moisture-laden air meets cooler polar air. Jet stream forms at
high altitudes above the polar front.  Storms along the jet stream like pearls on a necklace.
Additional factor that gives our region rain are the mountains: orographic lifting.
Microclimates (within our area there are a multitude of
microclimates, there are variations in the climate). Causes: proximity to water, N/S orientation, tree coverage,
valleys (cold air drainage), elevation.
Local variations in rainfall: Temperature does not vary much over Puget Sound region, but precipitation does.  Storm tracks from the Pacific Ocean, chanelling of airflow by topography, split over the Hood Canal (we may see this when we are at Theler). Increased rainfall over mountains due to orographic lifting, rainshadow on lee sides of mountains
Storm tracks from The N. Central US and Canada, cold winter air as squeezing through passes in the mountains.

Also material on spits