Home
Calendar
About Bijou
Mission & Goals
Principal's Page
Students
Student Support/Resources
Courses
Counseling
Library
Staff
D11 Home

"To the dull mind all nature is leaden. To the illumined mind the whole world burns and sparkles with light." -- Ralph Waldo Emerson

• Maps are small models of earth's surface
• SO - distances and sizes have to be proprtional to the real thing.

Map Scale - is the relationship between the distances on the map and the real world.
[CLICK HERE for more details on map scales]

• this scale will often be found on the

Map Legend

• along with all the symbols used on the map, and their meanings

Scale is usually represented as a ratio, such as:

1:36 000

• the text uses metric units, but if you buy topo maps locally, to use hiking in the mountains, you will be using English system units.


- in which case, the ":1" in the scale means "one inch" more often than not.

5.4
Mapping Earth from Satellites and Ships

Landsat
• Detects different wavelengths of light or energy coming from Earth's surface.

• Transmits digital images of these detections back to Earth, where they are turned into maps.

Topex-Poseidon     • Uses radar (high frequency radio signals) bounced by the satellite
                                off the surface of the ocean.
• water forms bulges over sea-floor mountains, and depressions over sea-floor valleys

• uses this information to map floor of ocean

Sea Beam     • Uses sonar to map the ocean floor from ships:
 

Sonar   • Uses sound waves bounced off an object to describe the shape of that object. If that object is the ocean floor, the topography of the ocean floor is described.