_____________ has played an important and continuing role in the history and culture of Arkansas.

Where and when you live has no impact on how you live.

Arkansas has _______ major land regions.

One approach to understanding the patterns of natural diversity of Arkansas is to examine its major regions, which have been referred to as _______ ________ or ecoregions.

Throughout the Paleozoic era the continents drew close together and eventually joined into a single “super continent” that has been called __________ .

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As individual continents approached each other, collisions caused mountains to rise, like the Ozarks in Northern Arkansas.

During the Paleozoic, all of Arkansas was covered by ______ _______ .

_____________ lowered the land surface until thick, erosion-resistant layers were reached, creating a series of level uplands, or plateaus—from highest to lowest, these are the Boston Plateau, the Springfield Plateau, and the Salem Plateau.

Changes in living things following a mass _____________ at the end of the Paleozoic era, along with other changes such as climate, have caused geologists to call this time the Mesozoic era, the time of “middle life.”

The term ___________ generally refers to long-term (decades to centuries) averages of annual and seasonal temperature and precipitation.

Between 14,000 and 10,000 years ago, the climate became _________ , the spruce forest declined, and most of Arkansas became dominated by vegetation much like that of today, with oak-hickory woodland to the north and oak-hickory mixed with southern pine in the south.

The major regions are relatively consistent among recent maps, although each varies slightly from the others, combining two regions or splitting one. The emphasis here will be the six natural divisions: ______________ , ________________ , ________________ , __________________ , _________________ , and _______________ .

Describe each of the major Geographic Land Regions in Arkansas.