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UNIT 3
The Face of Earth

Task 1. Read and memorize the following words:
protrude - видаватися ancient – древній, стародавній
terrain - рельєф appearance - поява
dome – купол, куполоподібнй basin – басейн, поклад
average - середній erode away – бути поступово
зруйнованим
warp – бути деформованим, flat – горизонтальний, пологий (пласт)
скривленим
elevation – висота (над рівнем моря), sample – зразок, модель
significant – важливий, істотний shield - щит
expansive - широкий veneer – поверхневий шар відкладень

Task 2. Transcribe and translate the following proper names: the Aleutian
Islands, Japan, the Philippines, and New Guinea, the Appalachians, the Urals.

Task 3. Read the following text, translate it into Ukrainian. Pay special
attention to the pronunciation of the following words: continents, plateaus, the
Aleutian Islands, Japan, the Philippines, and New Guinea, the Appalachians, the Urals.

The two principal divisions of Earth’s surface are the continents and the ocean
basins. A significant difference between these two areas is their relative levels. The
continents are remarkably flat features that have the appearance of plateaus protruding
above sea level. With an average elevation of about 0.8 km, continents lie close to sea
level, except for limited areas of mountainous terrain. By contrast, the average depth of
the ocean floor is about 3.8 km below sea level.
The largest features of the continents can be grouped into two distinct categories: (1)
extensive, flat stable areas that have been eroded nearly to sea level and (2) uplifted
regions of deformed rocks that make up present-day mountain belts. When the youngest
mountains are considered we find that they are located principally in two major zones.
The circum-Pacific belt (the region surrounding the Pacific Ocean) includes the
mountains of the western Americas and continues into the western Pacific in the form of
volcanic island arcs. Island arcs are active mountainous regions composed largely of
volcanic rocks and deformed sedimentary rocks. Examples include the Aleutian Islands,
Japan, the Philippines, and New Guinea. The other major mountainous belt extends
eastward from the Alps through Iran and the Himalayas and then dips southward into
Indonesia. Older mountains are also found on the continents: the Appalachians in the
eastern United States and the Urals in Russia.
Unlike the young mountain belts, which have formed within the last 100 million
years, the interiors of the continents have been relatively stable (undisturbed) for the last
600 million years or even longer. Within the stable interiors are areas known as shields,
which are expansive, flat regions composed of deformed crystalline rocks. It is called
Precambrian-age rocks that are more than 1 billion years old, with some samples
approaching 4 billion years in age. These rocks were once part of an ancient mountain
system that has since been eroded away to produce these expansive, flat regions. Other
flat areas of the stable interior exist in which highly deformed rocks, like those found in
the shields, are covered by a relatively thin veneer of sedimentary rocks. These areas are
called stable platforms. The sedimentary rocks in stable platforms are nearly horizontal
except where they have been warped to form large basins or domes.

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