Exam 18: The Topography of Arid Lands

Because of short steep canyons on the east side of Death Valley, no ________ are found there.

Pediments are often covered with a veneer of rocky debris.

Approximately 5 percent of all desert streams are ephemeral.

The single most important agent of landscape formation in deserts is ________.

The lowest elevation in North America is in Death Valley. Death Valley was created by

Of the below, the best example of the remnant of a Pleistocene lake in the western United States is ________.

Explain the basics of desertification.

The ________ zone at the base of desert mountain ranges is one of the most prominent areas of active fluvial deposition.

Alluvial fans which have expanded and joined over time form a landscape feature known as ________.

A common characteristic of all the basins of interior drainage in the United States is that they ________.

A(n) ________ might be formed when a narrow "fin" of rock collapses in mesa-and-scarp topography.

Dry lake beds with especially heavy salt concentrations are ________.

An arroyo is to a wadi as an inselberg is to a ________.

Great vertical escarpments are associated with ________ of sedimentary strata in desert climates.

Where the landscape is covered by sand and the crests of the sand dunes are perpendicular to the wind, the dunes are labeled ________.

Why are there tremendous amounts of erosion when it rains in a desert?

An aeolian form NOT unique to arid lands is ________.

The channel of a desert stream is usually covered with ________.

In a "true sandstorm," ________.

List 5 major deserts and their locations.