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3. INTERNAL FORCES OF RELIEF.
A. THEORY OF CONTINENTAL DRIFT:
 Many million years ago there was only a single super-continent,
called Pangaea, which broke up into fragments to make the
continents we have today.
 Look at the coasts of the current continents, we can see that
they seem to match like an enormous jigsaw.
PANGEA AND CONTINENTAL DRIFT.
B) TECTONIC PLATES:
 The Earth’s crust is not just one big piece of rock. It is divided into smaller
pieces of crust called tectonic plates.
 The plates move because the mantle underneath them is moving, but
they only move very slowly.
 The places where the plates meet are called plate boundaries or plate
margins.
C) WHAT HAPPENS WHEN THE PLATES MOVE?
 FAULTS AND FOLDS:
 Below the surface of the Earth, gases and compressed materials
put pressure on the crust. They can deform it or make it crack.
They are called INTERNAL FORCES.
 The Earth’s surface ondulates or fractures by the pressure from
molten materials in the mantle.
 When Earth’s surface ondulates FOLDS are created.
 When the surface is extremely ridig FAULTS are
created, and one block rise while the other sink.
 Fold:
• When two plates move towards each other the Earth’s
surface is forced upwards or folded.
• This happens very slowly.
 Faults:
• When the plates againts each other, pressure can build up.
Sometimes this causes the rock to split, making a fault in the rock.
• On one side of the fault, the ground rises, and on the other side it
falls.
Remember:
The Earth’s crust:
 It is thicker where it forms the continents and thinner where the oceans
cover it.
 The crust is not smooth, there are features of land relief (mountains,
valleys, basins or depressions and plains) on land and under the sea.
 The Earth’s relief is constantly changing because of internal and external
forces.
The Earth’s relief:
 Eath’s Surface is not flat and smooth.
 Relief (relieve) consists of all the features, such as mountains and valleys,
which make the terrain around us so varied.
 Landforms (accidentes geográficos): is another way to name all these
features.
5.HOW DOES RELIEF CHANGE?
o The Earth’ relief is shaped by its internal forces: pressures
(the movement of tectonic plates: folds and faults),
volcanoes and earthquakes.
o Relief is also shaped by external agents on the Earth’s
surface (external forces): water, wind, changes of
temperature and living things (human action).
o All of these external agents modify relief by three
processes:

 Erosion: materials, such as rocks and soil, are broken up

and moved around by external agents.

 Transportation: these materials are then transported by

seas, rivers, ice or wind.

 Deposition: eroded rocks, sand and mud are deposited in

low areas where the sediments acumulate.
EXTERNAL FORCES OF RELIEF
o Water: plays a very important role in erosion, transport and
deposition (rivers, seas and oceans, rain water and ground water).
EXTERNAL FORCES OF RELIEF
o Wind: (aeolian erosion)
 Is when wind erodes and transports rocks and sand.
 It often occurs in dry climates, sucha as deserts, because there is
little vegetation to protect the soil.

o Changes of temperature:
 In deserts or mountainous areas it is much hotter during the day
than at night-time.
 Water sometimes enter the cracks in rocks. It may break the rocks
if it freezes and expands.

o Living things:
 Vegetation or animals.
 Human action: through activities such as agriculture, deforestaion
or mining. Roads or reservoirs are man-made features of the Earth’s
relief.