To compete Exercise 2A, you will need to examine the topographic maps of two areas, the New River Mesa Quadrangle near Cave Creek, Arizona, and the Cat Mountain Quadrangle, near Tucson, Arizona.
Note: These movies are PDF files, viewable with the free Acrobat Reader (also called Adobe Reader). Zoom in and out by using the + and - buttons on the Reader toolbar, or by pressing "control =" to zoom in and "control -" to zoom out. Pressing the space bar brings up the hand tool, which will allow you to click and drag to a different part of the image.
1. Click on the link below to open the topographic map for the New River Mesa Quadrangle.
2. Examine the topographic map, first trying to distinguish features that rise above their surroundings (such as hills) from those that are lower than their surroundings (like valleys). Next, try to recognize the main topographic features (hills, cliffs, flat areas, streams, etc.) until you understand the general shape of the land and are comfortable reading a topographic map.
If you have any questions about how a feature, such as a road, is shown on these maps, an explanation of map symbols is provided here.
3. Return to your Canvas page (Module 2 > Exercise 2A-1) to answer a series of questions about the New River Mesa Quadrangle.
4. Click on the link below to open the topographic map for the Cat Mountain Quadrangle.
5. Return to your Canvas page (Module 2 > Exercise 2A-2) to answer a series of questions about the Cat Mountain Quadrangle.
6. Keep the Cat Mountain Quadrangle file open and also open the Cat Mountain TopoNumber Movie, which is an MP4 file that should run on most devices. Once the movie opens, you can rotate this 3D terrain to any position by starting and pausing the movie in a specific view or by dragging the progress indicator forward and backward. On the terrain are numbers positioned on specific topographic features. Find where each number on the 3D perspective would lie on the topographic map of the Cat Mountain Quadrangle. Return to your class Canvas page (Module 2 > Exercise 2A-3) to answer a question comparing these two maps.