Subtopic: Surface Processes

1964 Alaska Earthquake
This video adapted from the Valdez Museum & Historical Archive, explores what happened during the Great Alaska Earthquake of 1964 through original footage, first-person accounts, and animations illustrating plate tectonics.

Anatomy of a Tsunami
Using visual models and other graphics, this interactive activity from NOVA Online reveals details of the December 26, 2004 tsunami that collided with coasts around the Indian Ocean.

Antarctic Ice Movement: Part I
This video segment adapted from NOVA explains why ice sheets move. To find out how fast they move, scientists carve a tunnel through a glacier.

Avalanche Town
The impact of natural disasters is made vivid in this video segment adapted from NOVA. A small town in Iceland, prepared for recurrent avalanches, is devastated when one takes a new and damaging path.

Cave Formation: Biogeochemical Cycles
This video segment adapted from NOVA chronicles the discoveries that led to a radical new theory in which living organisms, not just geological processes, play an active role in cave formation.

Caves and Karst
This interactive resource adapted from the National Park Service presents the key concepts of cave and karst systems, including how and where they form, different types, and various cave environments.

Coastal Geological Materials
This interactive resource adapted from the National Park Service describes the different kinds of sediments that make up coastlines, with a focus on the variety in color, size, and sorting.

Continental Divide: The Breakup of Pangaea
Examine geological evidence found in fossils, rock deposits, and ancient mountains that supports the theory of continental drift in this interactive activity adapted from the Exploratorium.

Creating an Island Paradise
In this video segment from Nature, learn the geological process by which the next Hawaiian island will be formed.

Dating Lava Flows on Mauna Loa Volcano, Hawaiʻi
In this video segment adapted from NOVA, scientists search for carbonized remains of plants preserved in lava flows to find out how long it has taken rain forests on Hawaiʻi to regenerate after a volcanic eruption.

Earthquakes: Los Angeles
In this video segment adapted from NOVA, animations are used to show how the hills around Los Angeles were formed by earthquakes at small thrust faults that extend outward from the larger San Andreas fault.

Earthquakes: The Prehistoric Record
In this video segment adapted from NOVA, a geologist digs a trench along the San Andreas Fault to reveal three thousand years of earthquake history. Information from the layers of sediment may help geologists to predict earthquakes.

Earth System: Ice and Global Warming
This video segment adapted from NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center explains ice's role in the Earth system, highlighting the delicate balance that could be upset with a continued rise in temperature due to climate change.

Explore Alaska's Volcanoes
In this interactive activity adapted from the University of Alaska, explore four of Alaska's many volcanoes using photographs, computer simulations, and three kinds of satellite images.

The Falls of the Ohio
This video from KET examines one of the largest exposed fossil beds in the world, found at the Falls of the Ohio River, near Louisville, Kentucky.

Fastest Glacier
In this video segment adapted from NOVA scienceNOW, scientists in western Greenland explain how a glacier there is shrinking and moving faster due to increased melting.

Geology of Death Valley
This video segment from NatureScene examines the landforms of Death Valley and how they came to be.

Glaciers
Featuring images of glacier formations, this interactive resource adapted from the National Park Service explains what glaciers are, where they are found, how they form, and how they move.

The Grand Canyon: Ancient Mountains
This video segment adapted from NOVA features the twisted and melted forms of the Grand Canyon's oldest rocks, the 1.7-billion-year-old Vishnu Schist.

The Grand Canyon: Evidence of Earth's Past
In this video segment adapted from NOVA, a fossil found among the Grand Canyon's rock layers reveals the existence of a shallow sea that once covered most of western North America.

The Grand Canyon: Its Youngest Rocks
This video segment adapted from NOVA features the youngest rock formations in the Grand Canyon, lava dams, and how they are subject to the eroding power of water.

The Great Flood of 1993
In this video segment adapted from NOVA, a meteorologist explains how an unusual weather pattern led to one of the most devastating floods of this century.

Hawaiian Coastal Cliffs
This video segment from Nature explains the geologic forces behind the creation of Hawaii’s dramatic shoreline.

How Caves Form
This interactive activity from NOVA Online shows four different ways in which caves are formed: by rainwater, waves, lava, and bacteria.

How Do Avalanches Form?
In this video segment adapted from NOVA, dramatic footage of avalanches and animations of ice crystals illustrate how a layer of weakly-bonded snow can contribute to a devastating avalanche.

How to Build an Island from Scratch
Learn how the Hawaiian Islands were formed by a geothermal hotspot and resulting volcanic activity in this video segment from Nature.

Hunters Navigate Warming Arctic
In this video segment adapted from the National Film Board of Canada, learn how the Inuit people have used their traditional knowledge to understand and adapt to changes in their Arctic environment, particularly when hunting and navigating the landscape.

Hurricane Katrina: Wetland Destruction
Tour the wetlands south of New Orleans that were damaged by Hurricane Katrina in this video segment from NOVA scienceNOW.

Karst Topography and Mammoth Cave
This video from KET shows karst topography in the Mammoth Cave region of Kentucky, illustrating how caverns and sinkholes are formed from water dissolving limestone underground.

Making Big Waves
Certain sections of the Northern California coast are host to some of the largest, most spectacular ocean waves in the world. In this video segment from QUEST, learn about how these waves are able to get so large.

The Mississippi River Delta
These images from NASA, the Lunar and Planetary Institute, and U.S. Geological Survey illustrate the effects of severe storms and decades of river management on the size and shape of the Louisiana coastline and the Mississippi River Delta.

Mount St. Helens: Before and After
This multimedia resource produced for Teachers' Domain chronicles the 1980 volcanic eruption of Mount St. Helens. Featured are still images of the devastation, video of the eruption plume, and before-and-after satellite images of the affected region.

Nisqually Glacier at Mount Rainier
Observe the Nisqually Glacier at Mount Rainier in this video segment from NatureScene.

Observing Antarctica
Take a unique trip through Antarctica in this interactive activity, adapted from NASA, which uses high-resolution satellite images from the Landsat Image Mosaic of Antarctica (LIMA).

Organic Farming: Conserving Top Soil
Against the backdrop of the devastating 1930's Dust Bowl, this video segment adapted from Interactive NOVA profiles an organic farmer and the techniques he uses to conserve topsoil.

Plate Tectonics
Students are introduced to the theory of plate tectonics and explore how the theory was developed and supported by evidence.

Rock Cycle Animation
This visualization of the rock cycle from McDougal Littell/TERC illustrates common rock-forming processes such as crystallization, erosion, and metamorphism.

Sandy Coasts
This interactive resource adapted from the National Park Service profiles sandy coast environments and describes various features of sandy beach environments.

Soil Microbes and Global Warming
In this video adapted from KUAC-TV and the Geophysical Institute at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, discover how warmer winters in Alaska may cause soil microbes to release more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, contributing to global warming.

Tectonic Plate Movement in Alaska
In this video adapted from KUAC-TV and the Geophysical Institute at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, learn how tectonic plate movement is responsible for building mountains, such as the Wrangell and St. Elias Mountains.

Types of Fossils
This interactive resource adapted from the University of California Museum of Paleontology features images of body fossils, trace fossils, and a combination of the two.

Virtual Cave
This interactive resource adapted from The Virtual Cave by Dave Bunnell, presents images of various features found in solution caves and includes detailed information on how these features are formed and where they occur.

Visualizing Topography
Explore the topography of a hill, a valley, and a cliff in this interactive activity featuring visualizations of three-dimensional topography in two dimensions. Adapted from Stephen Reynolds' "Visualizing Topography."

Volcanism
Volcanoes are one of the most dynamic, powerful, and visible forces on Earth. This interactive resource adapted from the National Park Service uses images to describe different types and parts of volcanoes, volcanic rocks, magma, and where volcanoes form.

Water Erosion
In this video from Nature, learn about the erosive action of water on the Hawaiian landscape and human efforts to limit it.

What Is a Watershed?
Large or small, urban or rural, most watersheds have certain attributes in common. This segment from KET’s Raindrops to Rivers uses animation to show the full scope of a watershed from its collection to its final destination.