All over the world we find different landscapes - if you drive around you will see areas with high mountains or flat areas.
There will even be areas with tall trees or ice covering the ground. We call these 'landscapes' or 'landforms'.
One of the landscapes we see often is 'rock landscape' where you will find different types of rocks and shapes of mountains and hills.
We will be looking at a specific place in the UK called the 'Yorkshire dales' and this is a national park where plants and animals are protected and where you will find different types of rocks.
The main reason why a national park is created is to protect (conserve) the animal and plant life of the area. It also teaches people about nature, give them a place to relax and it brings in money for the community if people come and visit the park.
In this specific park there are many 'shapes and sizes' of different rocks and mountains. The reason is that they are made out of different types of rocks and some rocks will erode (break down) quicker than other types.
There are very few trees in this area and also some evidence of mining from the past.
Most of the rocks in this area are 'limestone'.
Limestone is a sedimentary rock composed primarily of calcium carbonate (CaCO3) in the form of the mineral calcite. It most commonly forms in clear, warm, shallow marine waters. It is usually an organic sedimentary rock that forms from the accumulation of shell, coral, algal, and fecal debris.
There are many features that people make from using this limestone like the pavements.
In this area it is not only the features that you see above ground that are stunning, but they also have a lot of underground features in caves like
- stalagmites and stalactites
- underground rivers
- pillars made of limestone
- caves with separate chambers
- find a picture of each of these features
There are two types of land forms that you will find underground in this area - it will either be 'erosional land forms' or 'depositional landforms'
As we said before, the limestone in this area are used for many things. Getting the limestone out of the ground is called 'quarrying' and because this is not banned in this national park, the workers must keep a close eye on this and decide what the advantages and disadvantages of this can be.
An advantage is that the selling of the limestone brings money to the area and some people would like to invest (put money in) the businesses, but disadvantages are that the quarrying causes a lot of dust and it also does not look very pretty. The blasting also causes a lot of noise pollution and eventually all the limestone will be mined and just a 'broken up' landscape will stay behind.
Activity
- You can choose any area in the world or your country. Do research and find out what different landscapes there are, what animals and plants are found here, what economic (money) value it holds, is it a place where you can do activities etc.
