science

Gordon Valley

Gordon Valley is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Gordon Valley rather than just read about it. In short: Gordon Valley (84°23′S 164°0′E) is a small valley, the western half of which is occupied by a lobe of ice from Walcott Neve, lying west of Mount Falla in the Queen Alexandra Range, Antarctica. It was named by the Advisory Committee on Antarctic Names after Mark A.

Key takeaways

Gordon Valley belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Gordon Valley to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Gordon Valley from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Gordon Valley (84°23′S 164°0′E) is a small valley, the western half of which is occupied by a lobe of ice from Walcott Neve, lying west of Mount Falla in the Queen Alexandra Range, Antarctica. It was named by the Advisory Committee on Antarctic Names after Mark A. Gordon, a United States Antarctic Research Program aurora scientist at Hallett Station, 1959.

Geology and Paleontology The Gordon Valley exposes the middle and upper members of the Triassic Fremouw Formation of the Beacon Supergroup. They consist of discontinuous beds of volcaniclastic sandstone intercalated with siltstone and silty mudstone, In the Gordon Valley, the upper member of Fremouw Formation contains a widely published and well-studied Triassic buried forest that consists of about 99 silicifed tree stumps and compressed leaves associated with paleosols and ancient stacked fluvial palaeochannels deposited by low-sinuosity braided streams. In addition to the buried forest, the sedimentary strata exposed within the Gordon Valley have yielded numerous fossils of Triassic tetrapods, including Cynognathus sp., and the first fossilized vertebrate tracks found in Antarctica.

Go see Mount Achernar buried forest

References

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Gordon Valley

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Gordon Valley claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Gordon Valley before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Gordon Valley ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Gordon Valley

In research: Gordon Valley appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Gordon Valley in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Gordon Valley is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Paleontological sites of Antarctica, Shackleton Coast, Shackleton Coast geography stubs, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Gordon Valley outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Gordon Valley in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Gordon Valley means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Gordon Valley out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Gordon Valley in simple terms?

Why does Gordon Valley matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Gordon Valley?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Gordon Valley.