Maps Skills : Physical Features (2nd Ed, 1988)

[Music] there he is outdoors Lance Boulder he's going to start out where he is now here on the coast of this island and attempt to make his way across a lot of territory he's never seen before he's going to do this in order to find and climb the highest mountain on the island it's a difficult Journey will he get hopelessly lost will he ever what how can I get lost I've got a map I'm going to start here go west and end up here easy see you later it looks like he starting out now we can only hope for the hey what happened where' this water come from it isn't on my map there seem to be a few bodies of water and landforms missing from your map there what we call physical features would you like to see a map that has more information on it I'd like to see one that shows where the bodies of water are all right here it is I'll color the bodies of water on it blue so it's easy to tell where they are this is the ocean all around the island you started out here on this coast and this is where you are now funny looking Lake this is a lake over here a body of water completely surrounded Ed by land the part you're in this is a bay that's a small part of the ocean that juts into the land up here is a gulf that's a large part of the ocean that juts into the land how about getting me out of this water thank you but now I'm back where I started I guess to get to the other side of the bay I'll have to go around it you can go around it the land form your on is called a peninsula that's a long piece of land extending into a body of water it's attached to the mainland form here I see so I can get off the peninsula by going this way and then I can go between the gulf and the lake here that's what I'm going to do bye now that I'm past the lake there are no more bodies of water the red best is easy would you like your map to show any other physical features what for look at this area nice and flat no problems that's called a plane a plane is low flat land that's usually very large but planes don't go on forever you know now what a rock wall what's this that's part of a physical feature called a plateau a plateau is a flat land like a plane but higher and often with steep sides this one happens to be thousands of feet high well I'm still trying to go that way you mean I have to get up onto the plateau here's a map of the island you're right here different colors on this MAP stand for different regions as you can see by looking at the legend the green part is the plane you just crossed the yellow area is the plateau in front of you and the brown shows the location of the mountains you're trying to get to the yellow area is the plateau but that's just this part here then I don't have to go over the plateau it looks like I can go around it correct terrific see you later now that I'm around the plateau I can see that I've just about reached the mountains but wait a minute I want to climb the highest mountain here how can I tell which mountain that is this map shows that there are three mountains and it shows where the mountains are but not much else how about a map that shows me which one's the highest okay let's make it a map that shows just the mountain area like this now the mountains aren't just Brown there are a lot of colors this is an elevation map look at the legend on an elevation map colors have a different meaning than they do on the map you've been looking at to see what those colored areas mean let's look at just one mountain in fact let's look at it directly from the side this slope of the mountain goes all the way down to the Sea here so this line represents sea level zero elevation and the highest point on the mountain is at an elevation of 10,000 ft that is 10,000 ft above sea level now suppose we cut the mountain horizontally into five sections that are each the same thickness that would give us five layers like the layers of a cake the cuts are these lines remember that each cut is really perfectly horizontal that means that every point on each line is at the same elevation above sea level we really cut up the mountain well not really just imagine it you'll see why the whole mountain is 10,000 ft high and we've chosen to make five layers of equal thickness out of it so each layer is 2,000 ft High We color the layers like this now this color represents the part of the mountain that goes from sea level to 2, ft this color stands for the section of mountain that's between 2,000 and 4,000 ft and so on up to the last section 8,000 to 10,000 ft now to show which color stands for what we make a legend like this you can see that tan for instance stands for the part of the mountain that's between 4,000 and 6,000 ft above sea level yes but what good is all this well suppose we turn the mountain so we're looking at it from directly above that's the way you would see it on an elevation map oh I see the colored areas show the elevations of the different parts correct the brown area for instance still stands for the part of the mountain that's between 6,000 and 8,000 ft above sea level as you can see from The Legend each colored area still represents a section of the mountain between cuts I see of course elevation Maps can be made to show planes and plateaus too let's go back to the elevation map of just the mountains can you tell which mountain is the highest let's see here's one mountain here's another and here's another but this is the only one with a white area that's 8,00 to 10,000 ft high so this one has to be the highest and that's the one I'm next to now exactly right great finally I know which mountain to climb now I can get started climbing it but it looks awfully steep can you show me how to use the map to find the easiest way up well let's look closely at just the mountain you want to climb let's take away the colors and just look at these lines we made when we cut through the mountain they're called contour lines we can write in the elevation for each contour line because as you know every point on each of these lines is at the same elevation for instance this tells you that every point on this line is at 2,000 ft above sea level every point on this line is at 4,000 ft and so on now let's look at this mountain from the top Maps like this that show elevations without using colors are called contour maps but can I use this map to find the easiest route up the mountain yes notice that here the contour lines are close together and here they're further apart what does that mean well think about what you're seeing when you look at this map it's as if you're high above the mountain looking down at it from up there in in some places the lines would look close together and in other places they would look further apart I understand here the lines look close together that's where the side of the mountain is very Steep and here on this side that isn't so steep the lines look farther apart so the parts of the mountain where the contour lines are farthest apart would probably be the easiest to climb right now do you think you could can use this map to find an easy path to the top you're here and this is the highest point where you want to end up sure first I'd want to get over here I'd try to follow this line so I don't have to change elevation very much and then I take this easy slope up to the top very good terrific I made it I got where I was going thanks for helping me understand physical features now see that Island over that way would you mind putting me there thank you there's another Mountain on the other side of this island and I'm going to climb that one too I've got my map right here see but your map doesn't show any bye physical features oh well [Music]