Landforms and their Evolution

Class 11 Geography · Fundamentals of Physical Geography · Chapter 6

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Summary

A landform is a small to medium tract of the earth's surface; several related landforms make a landscape. Each landform has a history and evolves through stages comparable to youth, mature and old age. This chapter describes the erosional and depositional landforms made by the major geomorphic agents. Running water in humid regions is the most important agent: erosional forms include valleys, gorges, canyons, potholes, plunge pools, incised meanders and river terraces, while depositional forms include alluvial fans, deltas, floodplains, natural levees, point bars and meanders. Groundwater in limestone (karst) regions creates sinkholes, dolines, caves, lapies and limestone pavements, and deposits stalactites, stalagmites and pillars. Glaciers carve cirques, horns, arêtes and U-shaped (glacial) valleys, and deposit moraines, eskers, outwash plains and drumlins. Waves and currents shape coasts: high rocky coasts develop cliffs, wave-cut terraces, sea caves and stacks, while low sedimentary coasts develop beaches, bars, barriers, spits and lagoons. Winds in deserts cause deflation and abrasion, forming pediments, pediplains, playas, deflation hollows and mushroom rocks, and deposit sand dunes such as barchans, parabolic, seif, longitudinal and transverse dunes.

Landforms and their Evolution

Key terms

Gorge and canyon
deep, steep-sided valleys; a gorge is equal in width top and bottom, a canyon is wider at the top.
Delta
a depositional landform built where a river dumps its well-sorted load into the sea.
Karst topography
limestone/dolomite landscape shaped by groundwater solution and deposition.
Cirque
a deep, wide armchair-shaped basin carved by a glacier at the head of a glacial valley.
Moraine
a ridge of unsorted glacial till (terminal, lateral, medial or ground).
Barchan
a crescent-shaped sand dune with wings pointing downwind, formed where wind direction is constant.

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Several related landforms together make up a:
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