Another ocean topographic profile graphing activity. This investigation is the third in a series of four topographic profile investigations, a good contrasting activity to link with sea floor spreading in the Atlantic, and a matching activity to the Peru-Chile Trench investigation. For classes that may be interested in our local southern California offshore topography these data are taken on a transect running southwest from the coastal mountains, through Laguna Beach, and across the offshore islands. The resulting graph shows the series of islands and basins that characterize the block faulting of the southern California bight. This is the fourth and last in a series of four topographic profile investigations, and provides a local focus and a much smaller scaled region to analyze than the other three. 7.
Students use a color key provided to prepare colorized anomaly charts.
The analytical prompts lead to a discussion of the effects of El Nino on our local southern California region. An actual one month summary of real tides is used to explore this relationship. This is a math and graphing exercise leading to an understanding of the science of tides and lunar gravity.