The Hydrological Cycle 

Evaporation from Earth's surface leads to condensation and the formation of clouds.  Water falls as rain over the sea and land.  Where it falls over the land it makes its way back to the oceans via streams and rivers and the process is repeated.  This cycle is fundamental to life on Earth and our survival.

Drainage Basins

Where rain, snow, hail and sleet fall onto the land, it drains to the sea via streams and rivers. Understanding the dynamics operating in a drainage basins is fundamental if we are to manage them - inputs, outputs and storage, and how water flows through the system - surface, overland and as groundwater.

River Flow & Discharge

Understanding hydrographs and how rivers flow allows us manage these systems and make predictions as to their behaviour. Which is fundamental in planning and flood control.  Erosion, sediment yield, load transport, deposition and sedimentation, velocity and discharge are all visited here.

Landforms

Levees, floodplains and bluffs, Meanders, oxbow lakes, and braided river channels, waterfalls, rapids and gorges.  All landforms resulting from the work of rivers - and fundamental to understanding the development of the landscape and geomorphology.

The Human Impact

We live in the Anthropocene.  The world is changing and some of that change is being driven by human activity.  We are modifying river flows, the risk of flooding is increasing, and methods need to be put in place to prevent and ameliorate the effects thereof.

Coastal Landscapes

Coasts are very dynamic places where land and sea meet.  This interaction leads to the formation of a host of landscapes as wave and current action does its work in carving out cliffs, caves and coves. As erosion destroys, so sedimentation creates, building out spits, bars, beaches and tombolas.

Plate Tectonics

Plate tectonics is fundamental to the rock cycle, and everything else for that matter.  It is central to the recycling and renewing of our planet, and should be central to our study of physical geography.

It is a mechanism that keeps our planet dynamic.  It has the same scientific status as the discovery of DNA and the Theory of Relatively.

The Rock Cycle

The immensely exquisite mechanism of plate tectonics recycles rocks, creating new crust in some areas all the while destroying it in others.  Erosion tears down mountains and lays down sedimentary rocks. Metamorphism changes these rocks whilst plate tectonics destroys and makes anew.

Glaciation

Glaciation has played an enormous role in the development of the landscapes.  During the last glacial maximum, ice sheets extended over much of northern Europe, including almost all of Britain, most of Canada and into the US. These ice sheets ground down mountain ranges and gouged out deep U-shaped valleys.

Tropical Environments

Much of the world lies in the tropics.  These regions are diverse - ranging from rain forests to savanna - and it is important that we have an understanding of these regions, what they contribute towards the sustainabiluty of our planet, and how we can preserve them.  

Arid Environments

Arid and semi-arid environments to you and me mean deserts and semi deserts.  These dry regions have their own landforms, their own climate and their own dynamics.  They are beautiful in their own special way and the study thereof forms a fundamental part of the syllabus.  

Mapwork

Mapwork has a reputation for being difficult, mathematical and hard to teach.  The dreaded topic of scale always rears its ugly head.  Here at Rock and Sky we take on the challenge of making mapwork simple and interesting, and tell some epic stories around how the world was mapped.