Justa little contribution;

Hi guys, I don’t think I’ll do another recap of the hydrosphere/atmosphere modules, so yep this is a reflection plus a little something at the back!

I must say that I favored the Physical Geography modules the most among all the others, from the lithosphere to the atmosphere. Maybe it is because I’ve had some prior general knowledge with regards to this subject, from encyclopedias to internet sites. I haven’t found physical geography a chore to explore as to me it was a great way to satisfy my curiosity about the natural world surrounding us all. Though I have never actually witness a volcano erupt, nor have I been around long enough to witness the formation of a waterfall, but the fact that there is much, much more behind all these awesome works of mother nature spurs me on to learn more.

I have benefited quite a lot from these modules, and I’m sure the class did too. Probably just the nature of these lessons are key to keeping most of us (or at least me) awake. During these times all I had in mind was to learn more, unlike other subjects where I aimed to capture everything for the sake of passing exams. Say, if only we all had this attitude in every class! As for the various tests including the one in assessment week, I believe pure memorizing terms and processes or practicing default answers from worksheets won’t get anyone anywhere. We need to sit back and take a look at the big picture, understand the entire thing as whole - not individual components. With such the ‘story’ will begin to make sense and answering any question would hardly differ from extracting some excerpts from a book.

Going through these modules certainly taught us in greater detail about the lithosphere, hydrosphere and atmosphere. Though some might say these are useless bits of information that we won’t need, but I beg to differ. Such science responsible for creating our perfect little enclosure in the universe, wouldn’t it be a bit too epic to consider useless?

Isn’t it amazing how all the processes that we learnt, of haven’t come to know of, all fit in nicely in the world we know today? Without our Earth’s crust existing in many continental plates moving around, we’d be able to walk to America. Without precious water constantly renewing itself by the water cycle, it would be too polluted to support life. And with a slightly tweaked atmosphere, we’d be either cooked or frozen.

Okay now for something interesting that I came across in a book! Then I decided to look up more on it.

The pororoca. Can rivers flow backwards?

This may sound kind of impossible, because we know that the volume of water flowing along a river is so massive that it always goes downhill; in accordance to gravity, and that an unnaturally immense counter-force would be required to reverse its flow, something unheard of to many, I believe.

Well this does occur, between the months of February and March. To the mighty Amazon river. Because of its very gentle gradient along its middle and lower course (about 2mm drop every km), and its wide mouth, the largest river in the world is subject to the periodic influx of the tides of the Atlantic Ocean. When astronomically high ocean tides occur, they override the Amazon’s current, pushing inland and reversing the current for over 800km upstream. This phenomenon is called the pororoca, and highly benefits ships weighing tens of thousands of tons as it gives them a free ride upstream. The power of this inland surge generates a wave which slowly increases in height as the width of the channel shrinks, resulting in a miniature tsunami – or tidal wave – that can be over 10m high at the 360km mark.

Good luck to those near the banks.

Kay i'm done.

Aaron