Geography Paper 1 June 2023

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1. ASoil depth, which the graph plots on its vertical axis as a proxy for the moisture each belt receives each year.
2. BLatitude, which the graph plots along its horizontal axis in degrees north and south of the equator, so that the belts read off directly as latitudinal zones from the tropics to the poles.
3. CAvailable moisture, since the two belts sit at broadly the same temperature and are separated along the precipitation axis instead.
4. DTemperature, since grassland on the graph occupies a distinctly colder band than tropical rainforest does.

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1. AYear round convection and convergence at the Inter Tropical Convergence Zone, driven by constant high insolation near the equator.
2. BOrographic uplift over a continuous equatorial mountain chain that forces every air mass to rise.
3. CRapid cooling of maritime air as it crosses a cold offshore current on its way towards the equator, which forces the moisture it carries to condense out as heavy rainfall over the coastal lowlands.
4. DProlonged frontal uplift where a warm air mass rides over a cold one along a stationary polar front.

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1. AThe assemblage of populations of different species occupying the same habitat and interacting with one another.
2. BThe total dry mass of living matter an area carries, expressed per hectare so that areas can be compared.
3. CThe single dominant species of an area, named after the tallest tree present in the canopy layer.
4. DThe stage a vegetation succession has reached at a given moment, measured against the climatic climax.

1. AA rise in soil nitrogen sufficient to convert the savannah into closed tropical rainforest.
2. BThe complete loss of termite activity, since the mounds depend on a continuous grass layer for their material.
3. CA change from evergreen to deciduous canopy species across the whole savannah at once.
4. DBush encroachment, because woody seedlings escape grass competition once the sward is removed.

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1. AFreeze thaw, producing angular frost shattered joint blocks along existing bedding planes.
2. BCarbonation, producing solution widened joints along which the rock is removed in solution.
3. CHydrolysis, producing chemically rotted joint faces within a deep saprolite profile.
4. DUnloading or pressure release, producing sheet or exfoliation joints parallel to the surface.

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1. AThe band of intensely weathered material lying immediately above unweathered bedrock in a humid tropical profile.
2. BThe accumulation of angular rock fragments fallen under gravity from a free face above, resting as a sloping apron at the cliff foot.
3. CThe rounded, well sorted gravel a river deposits on the inside of a meander bend as a point bar, built up as the reduced velocity on that side lets the coarsest part of the load settle out into a gently sloping shelf.
4. DThe layer of soluble salts left at the surface of a soil after capillary rise and evaporation in an arid climate.

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1. AFrost shattering at A grinds the rock to fine particles which are then removed by wind and by solifluction over the permafrost table, so that no weathered mantle of any depth can accumulate there under any temperature or rainfall conditions at all.
2. BHigh temperature and abundant water at B drive continuous rapid chemical weathering, and percolating water keeps removing the products so the weathering front moves steadily downward.
3. CArea B lies at a much lower altitude, so the greater atmospheric pressure physically compresses the rock and forces the weathering front deeper.
4. DThe bedrock at B is inherently softer, since deep weathering profiles form only on sedimentary rock while area A is floored by resistant crystalline rock.

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1. ADense oceanic lithosphere is subducted beneath lighter continental lithosphere down a Benioff zone, giving a deep trench, deep focus earthquakes, composite volcanoes and fold mountains.
2. BTwo plates slide horizontally past one another with no crust created or destroyed, giving shallow earthquakes but no volcanic activity at all.
3. CTwo continental plates collide, neither is subducted, and the sediments between them are crumpled into fold mountains with no trench and no volcanoes.
4. DThe plates move apart, decompression melting of the rising mantle feeds gentle effusive basaltic eruptions, and a submarine ridge with a central rift valley and shallow focus earthquakes is built up along the line of separation.

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1. AAeolian dust blown into the channel from bare ground on the surrounding interfluves during the dry season.
2. BGroundwater seeping into the channel carrying dissolved calcium, sodium and silica taken up as it passed through the rock.
3. CSlumping, soil creep and landslides delivering blocks of weathered regolith from the valley sides straight into the channel, where the river then breaks them down by attrition as it carries them downstream.
4. DAttrition, in which pebbles already in transport collide and wear each other into smaller rounded fragments.

1. AA river cliff, as hydraulic action and abrasion undercut the bank base until the overhang above collapses, and the process repeats.
2. BA point bar, as the reduced velocity on that side lets the river drop the coarsest part of its load as a gently sloping shelf.
3. CA delta, as the abrupt fall in velocity at the bend forces deposition of topset, foreset and bottomset beds.
4. DA levee, built up as coarse material is dropped the instant the river overtops its bank and loses velocity.

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1. AThe proportion of rainfall a vegetation canopy is able to intercept; when rainfall exceeds it the surplus arrives at the ground as stemflow.
2. BThe total depth of water a soil can hold against gravity; when rainfall exceeds it the surplus is held as soil moisture until the soil dries.
3. CThe maximum rate at which a soil can take water in through its surface; when rainfall intensity exceeds it the excess becomes overland flow.
4. DThe rate at which water moves sideways through the soil above an impermeable layer; when rainfall exceeds it the water is forced downward into the aquifer.

1. AThe oceans steadily lose volume to the land, which is why global sea level falls by a small but measurable amount every year and why the continental ice sheets and groundwater stores keep growing to hold the difference.
2. BThe difference is taken up permanently into the ice caps and deep groundwater, which grow year on year to absorb it.
3. CThe excess evaporated from the oceans is broken down in the upper atmosphere, so it never has to return to the surface at all.
4. DWater vapour advected from ocean to land through the atmosphere is returned in equal volume from land to ocean as runoff and groundwater flow.

1. AExotic, because the flow it carries was generated in a wetter region well outside the area the channel crosses.
2. BIntermittent, because it flows for the whole of the wet season and then dries up for the whole of the dry season.
3. CPerennial, because the water table stays above the bed all year and baseflow continues even in the dry season.
4. DEphemeral, because there is no baseflow contribution at all and flow ceases as soon as the runoff from the storm has passed.

1. AP will have a low, steady discharge sustained by baseflow, while Q will have a flashy regime with a high sharp peak and little dry season flow.
2. BP will have the flashier regime, because water passing quickly through sandstone reaches the channel sooner than water crossing granite does.
3. CBoth basins will behave identically, since the discharge of a river depends only on the amount of rainfall its catchment receives and not at all on the rock, soil or vegetation the rainfall happens to land on.
4. DQ will have the higher total annual discharge, because impermeable rock creates the additional water that becomes surface runoff.

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1. AThe Coriolis force reaches its maximum exactly at the storm centre and holds the air stationary against the pressure gradient.
2. BThe instruments carried into the storm cannot record wind speed reliably at the very centre because of the extreme turbulence there, so the low reading plotted at the middle of the graph is a recording artefact rather than a real calm.
3. CWind speed responds to the pressure gradient, that is the steepness of the pressure curve, and the gradient is steepest in the eye wall just outside the calm, subsiding eye.
4. DFriction with the sea surface is greatest directly beneath the storm centre, and it slows the wind there to almost nothing.

1. ASea surface temperature below 20 degrees Celsius, a position directly on the equator, and strong vertical wind shear to spin the developing vortex.
2. BA cold offshore current to cool the base of the air column, a stable subsiding atmosphere to hold the moisture near the surface, and a position over land where surface friction is greatest and can organise the converging air into a vortex.
3. CSea surface temperature of at least 26 to 27 degrees to a depth of 50 to 60 metres, a latitude of roughly 5 to 20 degrees, low vertical wind shear and strong upper level divergence.
4. DSea surface temperature of at least 26 degrees, a position within 2 degrees of the equator so that the Coriolis force is at its greatest, and a stable inversion capping the column.

1. AThe collision and coalescence process, in which larger droplets sweep up smaller ones as they fall through a warm cloud.
2. BThe Bergeron-Findeisen process, printed on this paper as the Bergeron-Findesein process.
3. CThe Coriolis process, in which the rotation of the Earth sorts droplets by size within the cloud until the largest fall out.
4. DThe adiabatic process, in which rising air cools at the saturated lapse rate until every droplet in the cloud freezes simultaneously.

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1. AAn advection inversion, and calm is essential because the warm air must be carried slowly enough to cool over the cold surface.
2. BA radiation inversion, and calm is essential because wind would mix the layers and destroy the temperature difference.
3. CA subsidence inversion, and calm is essential because any wind would prevent the air from sinking and warming adiabatically.
4. DA frontal inversion, and calm is essential because wind would move the warm front away before the warm air could override the cold.