Get That Grade

Glaciation, National Parks and Leisure

In many syllabuses these three topics are linked together. Even when they are not formally grouped together, there are close geographical links between the topics. Many National Parks have been glaciated, and it is the glacial scenery which is one of the main attractions for visitors to these areas.

The three topics have been linked together here.

Glacial erosion

How do glaciers erode?

Learn the meanings of:
• freeze-thaw weathering (which cracks the rock before glaciers cover the land, and around areas covered by ice)
• plucking (which happens when ice freezes around lumps of cracked rock)
• abrasion (or grinding - when rock held in the ice wears away at surfaces over which the rock passes)

Learn how ice forms in hollows where snow collects in winter and does not melt in summer. Then learn that the weight of ice, which accumulates in these hollows, starts to force the lower layers of the ice to move downhill as a glacier.

These hollows are eroded to form corries (also known as cwms, or cirques).

You should be able to:
• describe how a corrie is formed and what it looks like.
• name an example of a corrie.
• recognise the contour pattern that shows a corrie on an Ordnance Survey map.
• try to learn a quick, simple diagram of a corrie.

Many corries have little, roundish lakes in the bottom. Perhaps you should choose an example that has one of these lakes (or tarns in the Lake District).

A simple way to describe a corrie is:

'a giant, armchair-shaped hollow, about 1 or 2 km across and about 100-500 metres deep, with a steep back wall, which often has scree at its base.'

Arêtes (or knife-edge ridges)
These are the steep-sided, narrow-topped ridges of land left between two corries which have been cut into a hillside.

You must be able to name an example. It would be sensible to learn the name of a corrie that has formed at one side of the corrie that you learnt.

You should also learn the pattern which shows an arête on an Ordnance Survey map. This is quite easy to recognise, because arêtes usually have crag symbols along both sides, showing how steep they are. Again, you may be able to learn a quick sketch.

Pyramid Peaks
These are not often found in England or Wales. They are jagged, steep-sided peaks formed when corries have eaten into a mountain top from all sides. In France such a peak is sometimes called a 'dent' or 'tooth'. It looks like a 'canine tooth'. (This should be the third tooth back from the centre of your mouth. Feel it and you should get the right idea. Use any little method to help you remember!)

Troughs or U-shaped valleys
These are valleys eroded by major glaciers. They are deep, steep-sided and flat-bottomed (U-shaped.) They also tend to be straight or, if they bend, they have sharp, angular bends, not like the curves of river valleys.

Learn a named example of a trough, and how the ice eroded it. You may also need to know what a truncated spur is. (Ask your teacher or check in your syllabus.)

Many troughs have long, narrow finger lakes in their bottoms. It would be helpful to learn the name of a trough which also has a finger lake in it, to cut down on the number of examples that you need to remember.

Hanging Valleys
These are more difficult to understand than most glacial features. When major glaciers were cutting out deep troughs, they sometimes had tributary glaciers. These were not so powerful. They cut shallow valleys into the hillside, but they were not as deep as the troughs. When the ice melted the tributary valley was left, joining the main trough at a point high above the valley bottom. A steep waterfall often fell from the side valley down into the main valley. This side valley is known as a hanging valley.

Learn an example, and make sure you can explain how it was formed.

Examiners sometimes use photographs of glaciers and the mountains above the ice. On other occasions they use aerial photographs of landscapes that were previously glaciated. They ask candidates to recognise glacial features that are being formed or have been formed. Practice this skill. Make yourself familiar with photos of areas that have been glaciated.

Glacial deposition
When ice melts it loses energy and deposits the material it was carrying. This material is called moraine. Moraine is usually deposited in unsorted heaps. Large and small particles are carried along together and dropped where the ice melts. They are not graded into fine and coarse particles like river alluvium.

Deposition by glaciers
The main types of moraine dropped by glaciers are named after their position in the valley:
• terminal moraine is dropped at the end of the valley - at the furthest point reached by the glacier during a period of advance. Terminal moraines may help to dam glacial valleys, to form finger lakes
• lateral moraine is dropped along the sides of the valley. It is formed from the piles of material that fell onto the sides of the glacier, which were cracked from the valley sides by freeze-thaw weathering
• medial moraine is formed down the middle of a glacial valley, where two glaciers have joined. The lateral moraine from each glacier merges at the point where the glaciers join.

You should learn about these different types of glacial moraine, and memorise a quick sketch map to illustrate where they are found.

Deposition by ice sheets
When ice sheets deposit material they can form many different kinds of features. You are not always required to know about these in GCSE syllabuses. Check whether you need to learn about:

• drumlins
• till plains (boulder clay)
• eskers
• kames
• erratics (also deposited by valley glaciers)

Fluvio-glacial deposition
This happens when material is deposited by a glacier or an ice sheet, and then moved again by melt water flowing away from the ice. The water then sorts out the glacial material, and rounds it. The coarse material is deposited first, when the water starts to lose energy. The fine material is carried furthest. This can form an area called an outwash plain.

Look at the Reading map extract at the back of your Get That Grade! book. Have you wondered why there is (or rather was) so much sand and grave on the flood plain of the Thames and its tributaries? This was mostly deposited at the end of the Ice Age, when the rivers were flowing over glacial deposits and eroding them. In this area the water slowed down and deposited much of its load. It sorted it, dropping gravel first and sand later. This now provides a valuable resource which can be quarried quite easily.

One common technique used by examiners is to provide a diagram showing a variety of types of glacial and/or fluvio-glacial deposition, and candidates are asked to name and label these features. Try to make yourself familiar with diagrams like this.

Glaciation and National Parks
Location and function of National Parks in England and Wales
The main areas of upland glaciation in England and Wales are in the north and west of the country. The most spectacular areas of glacial scenery are also National Parks. The two best examples are The Lake District and Snowdonia. Other National Parks were affected by glaciation, but the results are not so spectacular.

For many years there were ten National Parks in England and Wales. You may be using a textbook that still shows just these. In the 1990s The Norfolk Broads also became a National Park. The New Forest is to become a Park and The South Downs may well achieve Park status soon.

You need to know where the National Parks are. You should certainly be able to name and locate the main ones that you have studied on a map of the UK.

All the National Parks are in England and Wales. Scotland has a different system. If you are given a map and asked to mark one or more Parks, check to see whether it shows England and Wales or the whole of Great Britain. It can be very embarrassing if you muddle these two up!

When you have learnt where the Parks are located, you should learn what their main functions are. The two original instructions to the Park Authorities were concerned with:
• conservation of landscape
• encouraging access

A third has now been added:
• reducing conflict between different groups who use Parks

You must make sure you know these aims.

Leisure and tourism
Find out why National Parks are attractive to visitors.

Note that this section is linked to glaciation! This is because it is glacial scenery that is one of the main attractions of Parks like The Lake District and Snowdonia. That should be your starting point in any answer on the attractions of those two Parks.

If you are writing about other Parks, you ought to know about their main physical geographical features. For example:
• limestone scenery in the Yorkshire Dales and the Peak District
• spectacular coastal scenery on the Pembroke Coast
• granite tors on Dartmoor
• the wetlands and waterways of the Norfolk Broads

When you are writing about these attractions, don't be afraid to be enthusiastic about their beautiful and spectacular scenery. Don't waste space and time trying to write like Wordsworth, but do show that you can appreciate great landscape. Geography examiners usually like that sort of thing.

Then you need to learn about the types of leisure activity that take place in your chosen Park. If the area is glaciated then activities may well include:
• fell walking - but you should try and name specific walks
• rock climbing and abseiling - again, name the crags, if you can
• sailing - name the lakes
• canoeing - name the streams, if possible
• skiing - this may be possible during especially cold winters
• sight-seeing trips by car and coach, which appeal to all ages - name specific sites

When possible, link the leisure activities directly to features of glaciation, e.g. rock climbing on steep back walls of corries. (The same principle applies to other types of Park, e.g. potholing in limestone caverns, gaining access via sink holes.)

You should be aware that tourists can cause problems. Too many tourists can damage or even destroy the very things that attracted the visitors in the first place. Learn about some of the following:

• erosion of footpaths
• parking problems
• damage done to farming and farm land
• overcrowding

Almost all candidates in exams can use the term honeypot site. It sticks in people's minds. You may gain a mark for using the word in the right place. But you need to know exactly what it means.

Remember:

A honeypot is a small area, within a National Park or other large area of attractive scenery, that attracts a lot of tourists. The tourists may actually damage the honeypot. The Park authorities usually try to make the area 'tourist proof' by providing lots of car parking, well-maintained paths, refreshment sales, toilets and other facilities. They hope that, by attracting lots of people to the honeypot, other areas will be saved from too much tourism. If masses of people swarm to the honeypot, then other parts of the National Park will be left quiet and unspoilt.

Learn about a specific honeypot, and its affects, in detail.

Land use conflict in National Parks
The land in National Parks is mostly privately owned. People and organisations like farmers, water authorities, quarrying companies and the military have to use the land for their everyday work. At the same time, tourists want to use the land for leisure. This means that the areas must be very carefully managed to reduce conflict.

It is very easy to think about the 'types' of conflict that may arise. For example:
• tourists walk on the farmer's land and trample grass that is used for hay
• quarries are an eyesore that spoil the landscape for tourists

'Eyesore' comes from two words, 'eye' and 'sore'. Looking at ugly sights makes the eye sore. If you realise that, you will spell it properly! It is a word that is spelt wrongly very often, and can really annoy examiners. Other words that you need to be able to spell properly are:
• sight (something that you look at)
• site (a place where a village grows up, or where a factory is located, etc.)
• access (and accessible, accessibility)
• environment
• Ordnance Survey

However, it is far better if you can name specific, located examples of each of the conflicts that you write about. For instance:
• fell walkers climbing up to Stickle Tarn in the Langdale Valley have worn a path that is 10 metres wide in places. They are destroying good grazing land.
• the army uses large areas around Otterburn for training purposes, so this beautiful area in the Northumberland National Park cannot be used by farmers or by tourists.

Managing conflicts
The development of honeypot sites has been mentioned as one way of managing tourism. You need to learn at least one or two other management strategies used in your chosen National Park. For instance:
• ways of reducing traffic - such as 'Park and Ride' schemes
• ways of encouraging tourists not to leave litter (are bins a good idea, or is it better to encourage visitors to take all their litter home?)
• subsidising farmers to rebuild dry stone walls, which many people think add to the traditional look of the countryside