My Science School

The glowing sun glares down on a vast sea of sand. As far as the eye can see, sand stretches in great brown ripples. The air is so hot it seems to shimmer as it rises from the sand. Not even the tiniest green plant is in sight.

Most people picture this endless, hot sandy land when they think of a desert. But there are many kinds of deserts. Some deserts are sandy places with very few plants. Others are flat plains with many kinds of plants. Some deserts are bare spots near seashore, while others are rocky areas high in the mountains. Some deserts are hot all year round. Others are hot or warm only in summer.

But one thing that is true of all deserts is that they are places where little rain falls. It does rain in deserts, but usually not much. Some parts of deserts get just a sprinkle every few years. Sometimes a desert is so hot that the rain dries up before it reaches the ground! In some deserts, heavy rain can cause sudden floods because the earth can’t soak up water fast enough.

Scientists say that some deserts were once green and fertile. Changes in climate made the rains stop and turned the land to desert.

The dry wind whispers as it passes over high, rocky deserts. Here there is little change. The rocks look the same year after year. But in a sandy desert, you might have a hard time finding the same spot from one year to the next. Hills of sand, called dunes, shift and change shape.

There are two kinds of dunes in the desert. One is usually crescent-shaped. A crescent is like a half circle. This dune builds up gradually into a long slope on the side from which the wind comes. It then drops steeply on the other side.

The second type of dune takes shape along the same direction that the wind blows. It has long, wavy ridges with the same kind of slopes on both sides.

Winds shift the sand from one shape to another. As desert sands shift, the dunes move. As the dunes move, they can cause a lot of damage to any buildings in their path. Desert towns sometimes disappear under shifting sand.

Have you ever travelled across land where the sky seems bigger than the countryside around you? If so you probably saw a part of the earth called a plain. The land is so flat that you can see great distances all around.

Most plains are lower than the land around them, but they are not deep like a valley. Many people live on plains because the soil is good for farming. Also, building homes and roads is easier on the flat land of plains than it is in mountainous places.

Plains may be found along a coast or inland. Coastal plains are lowlands that stretch along an ocean’s shore. They might be elevated parts of the ocean floor. Or they can be formed by solid materials carried off by water from other coastal plains. Coastal plains usually rise from sea level until they meet higher land, such as mountains.

Inland plains may be found at high levels. The Great Plains, which cover part of the U.S.A. and Canada, slope upwards from about 600 to 1,000 metres above sea level. There they meet the Rocky Mountains.

Thick forests thrive in the damp air along coastal plains. Other plains, like those in which the sky seems so big, have few trees, but they have lots of grasses.

If the highest part of the land is a mountaintop, what do you think the lowest place is? That’s right - a valley.

Most valleys begin as land with a stream or river running through it. As the river   flows along, it breaks off pieces of the land and carries them away. This deepens the river’s path and changes the land beside it.

Over time, water cuts deeper into the earth, making steep walls. Wind and rain wear away at the walls, and this makes the valley widen.

The part of the valley where water flows is called the valley floor. As the valley widens, its floor and walls change shape. Valleys that are long and narrow with steep sides are called canyons or gorges. Valleys in low-lying plains can be very spread out. Many valleys become so wide that people live in them.

Most valleys are formed by running water, but some form in other ways. Some valleys form where the ground sinks, like the valley the Dead Sea is in between the countries of Jordan and Israel. It is the lowest dry land on the earth. Other valleys can be found high in the mountains where moving piles of snow and ice called glaciers scrape out deep valleys. There are even valleys on the ocean floor.

The Ground Shakes

The ground shivers, shakes, and rumbles. Whole sections of land move, and even mountains seem to move. What is happening? It’s an earthquake!

What causes earthquakes? Earthquakes start in the earth’s crust. Pressure builds and pushes rocks until they bend. If you bend a stick long enough, it snaps and breaks. The rocks break, too. When this happens, shivers and quakes rush through the ground. Sometimes a deep rumbling sound fills the air. Sometimes whole pieces of land move.

Thousands of earthquakes that are strong enough to be felt occur somewhere on earth each year. Some people live where small earthquakes happen often. Lamps and hanging plants swing a little. Dishes may rattle. Cars may rock.

In very strong earthquakes, the walls in buildings crack. Bridges collapse, power lines break, and fires begin. In a really bad earthquake, the ground may split open.

People who study earthquakes are called seismologists. They measure the movement of a quake and the damage it causes. They also try to judge when a quake will happen so they can warn people who might be in danger.

An Island is born

Day after day, huge explosions filled the air. The ocean sizzled as hot rock and ash shot up from the sea floor. Soon, a large mound of dark, melted rock rose out of the water. Far out in the sea, a new volcano was born.

After it rose above the surface of the ocean, the new volcano was called an island. This island formed in the ocean near the southern coast of Iceland. It is called Surtsey. It is really an underwater volcano, and its bottom lies under the sea.

For four months, huge explosions sent steam and ash into the air. Steam sometimes rose as high as 6 kilometres. Then flaming hot lava began to flow. When it hit the cold water, the lava cooled and hardened, forming a cone-shaped mountain. The volcano erupted for about three and a half years.

Today, Surtsey covers an area of nearly 2.6 square kilometres. From a distance, the island appears to have no life on it. But scientists who visit it are finding insects and spiders there, as well as plants that started from seeds carried by birds, wind, and water.

Picture Credit : Google

A volcano is a special kind of mountain that actually builds itself! It is made of red-hot rock that pushed up out of a crack in the earth.

A volcano begins deep inside the earth when the force of hot gas pushes melted rock up. With a loud, deep rumble, the ground begins to shake and burst open. Fiery hot rock can shoot into the air, and melted rock may flow out of the earth. With the volcano, there may be earthquakes and explosions. Huge clouds of smoke and ash may fill the air.

The melted rock is called magma. Magma that pours out onto the earth’s surface is called lava. Some lava is as thick as syrup, and some is as thin as soup.

As thin lava stops flowing and cools, it hardens into smooth sheets of rock. Thicker lava cools into rough, jagged sheets.

As more lava pours out of the earth, it falls on the cooled rock. As the ash and rock pile up, a new mountain forms. It forms a cone-shaped mountain with a deep tunnel down its middle.

Picture Credit : Google