Difference between “geographical” and “geological” for my 11-year-old daughter.
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Geography deals with where things are, especially the things people make like cities and countries.
Geology deals with how rocks and other parts of the physical landscape form, and how they change over time.
Geography and geology both deal with mountains, but geography is just about the name of the mountain and the way humans interact with the mountain. It’s about things that happen on the surface of the mountain. Geology is about how the mountain got there, and what the rocks in the mountain are made of.
Geographical = country borders, geological = what does the ground consist of, like limescale, bedrock, sand, granite, how was the mountains created, platonic movements stuff like that
Geology is what the planet is made of and how it formed. There are many branches of geology and they study what the planet looks like inside, where you find things like oil, metals, minerals and how they got there. They look at the composition of rocks, study volcanoes and earthquakes and fossils.
When you dig mines or tunnels or build large structures, geologists examine the ground to make sure it’s safe. The oil industry and the mining industry have geologists looking for oil, natural gas, metals, gems, etc. They study the composition of soil which is important for agriculture.
Geography is about the surface of the planet. They map the planet and study how the surface forms and changes both from natural causes and human interference. They study where and why there are deserts and glaciers and forests and steppe and wetlands and so on, and they also study cities and human settlements, they both map and plan those
So is geology a sub category of geography or are they separate disciplines but with some overlap?
The word origins explain the difference
Map of the earth (geo – graph)(earth – chart/writing)
Study of rocks (geo logy) (earth study)
Geography has to do with how features like mountains or cities are arranged on Earth’s surface. Geology studies what the Earth is made of and how those materials change and move over time.
In short: geography is maps, geology is rocks
“Where” vs “what”. I can grab a piece of South Dakota sandstone and a piece of Saharan sandstone. The “where” is different but the “what” is the same.
Geography is the surface of the earth, everything attached to it, and it’s mainly concerned with where everything is in relationship to each other.
Geology is everything under the surface, and how it came to be and how it’s going to behave. It’s relevant to geography because it causes the surface features geography is concerned with.
Geography is primarily interested in a single point in time. You might talk about geography today, or millions of years ago. Geology is primarily interested in changes over time. The position and composition of the earth’s crust changed over time, and that meant that the geography of millions of years ago changed into the geography of today.
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