continental landform

▪ geology

Introduction

      any conspicuous topographic feature on the largest land areas of the Earth. Familiar examples are mountains (including volcanic (volcanism) cones), plateaus, and valleys. (The term landform also can be applied to related features that occur on the floor of the Earth's ocean basins, as, for example, seamounts, mid-oceanic ridges, and submarine canyons.) Such structures are rendered unique by the tectonic mechanisms that generate them and by the climatically controlled denudational systems that modify them through time. The resulting topographic features tend to reflect both the tectonic and the denudational processes involved.

      The most dramatic expression of tectonism is mountainous topography, which is either generated along continental margins by collisions between the slablike plates that make up the Earth's lithosphere or formed somewhat farther inland by rifting and faulting. Far more subtle tectonic expressions are manifested by the vast continental regions of limited relief and elevation affected by gentle uplift, subsidence, tilting, and warping. The denudational processes act upon the tectonic “stage set” and are able to modify its features in a degree that reflects which forces are dominant through time. Volcanism as a syn-tectonic phenomenon may modify any landscape by fissure-erupted flood basalts capable of creating regional lava plateaus or by vent eruptions that yield individual volcanoes.

      The denudational processes, which involve rock weathering and both erosion and deposition of rock debris, are governed in character by climate, whose variations of heat and moisture create vegetated, desert, or glacial expressions. Most regions have been exposed to repeated changes in climate rather than to a single enduring condition. Climates can change very slowly through continental drift and much more rapidly through variations in such factors as solar radiation.

      In most instances, a combination of the foregoing factors is responsible for any given landscape. In a few cases, tectonism, some special combination of denudational effects, or volcanism may control the entire landform suite. Where tectonism exists in the form of orogenic uplift, the high-elevation topography depends on the nature of denudation. In humid or glacial environments whose geomorphic agencies can exploit lithologic variations, the rocks are etched into mountainous relief like that of the Alps or the southern Andes. In arid orogenic settings, the effects of aggradation and planation often result in alluviated intermontane basins that merge with high plateaus interrupted or bordered by mountains such as the central Andes or those of Tibet and Colorado in the western United States.

      In continental regions where mountainous uplifts are lacking, denudational processes operate on rocks that are only slightly deformed—if they are sedimentary—and only moderately elevated. This produces broad basins, ramps, swells, and plains. These are most thoroughly dissected in rain-and-river environments (sometimes attaining local mountainous relief on uplifts). Elsewhere, they may be broadly alluviated and pedimented where mainly arid, or widely scoured and aggraded where glacial.

      Minor denudational landforms are superimposed on the major features already noted. Where aridity has dominated, they include pediments, pans, dune complexes, dry washes, alluvial veneers, bajadas, and fans. Ridge-ravine topography and integrated drainage networks with associated thick soils occur where humid conditions have prevailed. Combinations of these features are widespread wherever arid and humid conditions have alternated, and either category may merge laterally with the complex suite of erosional and depositional landforms generated by continental glaciers at higher latitudes.

      This article reviews the significant theories of landform genesis developed during roughly the past two centuries.

General observations

Basic concepts and considerations

      Landform evolution is an expression that implies progressive changes in topography from an initial designated morphology toward or to some altered form. The changes can only occur in response to energy available to do work within the geomorphic (geomorphology) system in question, and it necessarily follows that the evolution will cease when the energy is consumed or can no longer be effectively utilized to induce further change. The latter steady state, or dynamic equilibrium, situation will then continue with little topographic change until the prevailing conditions cease or are disrupted, so that a new evolutionary sequence can begin.

      The English poet Alfred, Lord Tennyson once wrote:

The hills are shadows, and they flow

From form to form, and nothing stands;

They melt like mist, the solid lands,

Like clouds they shape themselves and go.

      Tennyson's verse speaks well of the geomorphic necessities of time and landform change. Even the ancients were well aware of the ongoing effects of gravity, and it has long been realized that, given time and in the absence of opposing forces, gravity would pull the Earth's surface roughness down to form a featureless subaqueous spheroid. Such an evolution would be simplicity in the extreme and may in fact foretell the eventual destiny of terrestrial landforms when internal processes that generate relief cease to operate some billions of years hence in response to growing entropy in the system.

      Even now in regions where the uplifting and relief-creating mechanisms have been inoperative for several hundreds of millions of years, the lands have been reduced by denudation to low and often nearly featureless plains. Yet, it is clear that any modern theory of landform evolution must take into account the possibility of a periodic regeneration of continental elevations, particularly of large-scale relief features. For without such regeneration, there would be no continents or mountains even today, given their present rates of erosional destruction.

      The history of landscape evolution theory is one of adapting concepts to new evidence of increasing complexity. This situation is quite apparent in the way thinkers and scientists have dealt with the processes within the Earth that oppose gravity and re-create land elevation and roughness. The existence of such processes was implicit in the writings of Xenophanes of Colophon (c. 570–c. 478 BC), Herodotus (c. 484–420? BC), and Leonardo da Vinci (AD 1452–1519). The culmination of ideas of continental renewal and relief genesis is found in the isostatic theory formulated by John Henry Pratt and George Biddel Airy of England during the mid-1800s and in the concepts of plate tectonics put forth by Harry H. Hess and Robert S. Dietz of the United States during the early 1960s. Periodic resurrection of the surface roughness of the Earth is an event that geologists continually plot, widely accept, and increasingly understand.

      Over the years there have been many other ideas that have posed complications for geomorphic theory. Notable among these were notions of continental submergence by seas (proposed by Georges-Louis Leclerc, comte de Buffon, about 1750), which had implications of relative sea-level changes and sedimentary leveling of submerged areas.

      Theoretical matters were complicated further by suggestions during the 19th century that iceberg rafting of gravel during Noah's Flood accounted for glacial “drift.” Since that time, the Noachian Deluge has lost much of its geomorphic appeal. Yet, sedimentary deposits laid down in ancient inland seas are widely acknowledged to account for much continental bedrock, and they underlie and create vast structural plains in areas such as Australia.

      The geomorphic implications of volcanism were already widely appreciated in the 1700s, though they were not well integrated into modern tectonic mechanisms until 1961. climate, however, is another story. Glacial theory was introduced during the early 1800s and was seen by many to have climatic and geomorphic implications. Nonetheless, the most popular theory of landform evolution of the past century, that proposed by the American geologist and geographer William Morris Davis (c. 1899), relegated continental glaciation to accidental status and gave no real consideration to the geomorphic effects of non-glacial climates. Until about 1950 this Davisian view held sway in geomorphology. Since then, research has shown beyond question that a variety of climatic effects can have a profound influence on landscape, that climates change (often with great frequency and intensity), and that virtually none of these events can be termed accidental.

Constraints on modern landform theory

      Rather than merely trace the hit-or-miss development of geomorphic ideas from their beginnings roughly two centuries ago, it seems preferable to cite here those conditions firmly determined by intensive research that must serve as constraints for any modern theory of landform evolution. A brief mention of the postulates of earlier theorists will then show immediately what they accomplished, ignored, failed to consider, or were ignorant of. In sum, a modern theory of landform evolution must contend with the following well-established factors:

● Continents consist of a craton of crystalline rocks (rock) 1,000,000,000 to 3,000,000,000 or more years old, have been periodically submerged by epicontinental seas, and are in most cases locally covered with veneers of nearly flat-lying sedimentary rocks.

● Where orogenic events were involved less than 500,000,000 years ago, mountainous elevations and relief containing deformed rocks exist on continents.

● Lowering of the land by denudational processes is accompanied by essentially continuous isostatic adjustment by load-compensating uplift.

● Mountainous relief of the continent-to-continent collision type (e.g., the Appalachian Mountains of eastern North America) can eventually be eliminated by erosion, whereas trench-type mountains (e.g., the Andes of western South America) probably cannot as long as the associated trench subduction system endures.

● Climates on lands vary through time in response to lateral continental drift of 0–12 centimetres (0–5 inches) per year. North America, for example, is moving northwest at a rate of about three centimetres per year. On the other hand, Antarctica is hardly moving and has been in a polar position undergoing glaciation for about 30,000,000 years.

● Over most lands, climates also vary with atmospheric, oceanic, and solar factors in cycles lasting thousands of years (the Milankovitch solar radiation cycle, for example, has a duration of ± 25,800 years).

● In select hydrographically favoured sites on time scales not influenced by continental drift (e.g., Antarctica), climates on continents or portions thereof can remain essentially constant for periods of millions of years.

● Since geomorphic processes under arid, humid, glacial, and possibly other climate conditions can induce particular landforms, areas subject to periodic climate change often show polygenetic landform associations.

● Landforms exposed for millions of years to a constant environment may display a climax (steady-state) landform association that is essentially timeless and in which landform evolution through denudation is reduced to mere negative allotropic growth.

● Since volcanism is seemingly localized in accordance with mobile heat-dispersal patterns within the Earth, eruptive effects may be imposed on any surficial geomorphic system at any stage of development.

● Similarly, mobile tectonic patterns involving rock deformation may be brought to bear on any surficial geomorphic system, with resulting relief, elevation, and topographic changes.

● Impacts on planetary surfaces by falling meteoroids, asteroids, and cometary bodies are periodic but are capable of generating landforms of mountainous proportions.

● Surficial geomorphic agents of denudation responsible for many, if not most, landforms include mass wasting, running water, glacial ice, and wind. They are not all of equal significance in every climatic setting, however.

● The geomorphic agents respond to various climates, changing in character and effect. They also respond in some degree to altered conditions of elevation and relief.

● The behaviour of denudational agencies and related geomorphic processes is neither constant nor linear in nature. Rates vary from long-term, imperceptible, and gradual to brief, rapid, and catastrophic.

● Changes produced by geomorphic agents vary in magnitude but not directly with time—i.e., the same change involving the same energy expenditure may be either slow or fast. (Studies of river systems, for example, suggest that greater changes in channel morphology occur during brief infrequent floods than during protracted low-flow periods.)

● Perturbations in geomorphic processes or environments cause accelerated changes in most landform configurations, soils, and deposits, which eventually slow down as new equilibrium forms develop.

● A given landform or deposit is only stable in association with its formative process and environment, and in any subsequent alternative setting it begins to change toward a new equilibrium morphology.

● In a denudational setting, slope as an influence over process rate may be subordinated to such factors as runoff volume, soil-moisture content, bedrock coherence, ground-cover type, channel roughness, channel cross section, weathering type, sediment calibre, and sediment quantity.

● When climate in a region changes, elimination of relict landforms and deposits causes a disequilibrium phase, which is followed by a dynamic equilibrium phase as new geomorphic equilibria are established. The disequilibrium phase may range from a few score or hundred years for certain organic responses to many thousands of years for soil, hillslope, or drainage adjustments.

● Some landforms or deposits, once formed, strongly resist subsequent changes regardless of climatic history—e.g., entrenched meanders such as those that exist in parts of the Appalachians, chert felsenmeers (accumulations of rock blocks) like those in the southern Ozark region of the United States, and duricrusts of the type commonly found in Australia.

● No such thing as an “average” terrestrial climate seems to exist, and certainly a climatic “norm” for one continental configuration would differ from that for another—e.g., the supercontinent Pangaea of pre-Cretaceous times (more than 146,000,000 years ago) differed climatically from its subsequent fragments for both the Cretaceous (approximately 146,000,000 to 65,000,000 years ago) and the present.

● Sea level has been found wanting as a stable limiting datum for erosional processes or as an influence on stream behaviour. Glacioeustatic fluctuations on the order of 130–150 metres appear to have been commonplace during the continental glacial sequences of the Carboniferous (approximately 359,000,000 to 299,000,000 years ago), Pleistocene (approximately 2,000,000 to 12,000 years ago), and at other times, and periodic dessication of restricted ocean basins has occasionally permitted major rivers to deepen their courses thousands of metres below mean sea level.

● The Earth and the solar system as a whole are at least 4,500,000,000 years old. This is long enough for some geomorphic phenomena to occur several times but probably not long enough for others to happen even once. Certainly it is doubtful if more than nine collision-type mountain systems can have been eroded away in one spot, even if it were possible for them to form there.

Historical survey

      Some of the more significant landform theories of the past 200 years or so are considered here, with particular attention to the degree to which they reflect the list of geomorphic constraints cited above. It should be noted that most early theorists operated within the chronological limitations imposed by theologians. During the 17th century, for example, Archbishop James Ussher (Ussher, James) of Ireland added up the ages of men cited in the Old Testament of the Bible and concluded that the creation had occurred in 4004 BC. John Lightfoot, an English divine and Hebraist, was so stimulated by this revelation that he additionally observed that the exact time was October 26 at 9:00 AM! This meant that all of the Earth's surface features had to have been formed in less than 6,000 years. Given this time frame, geomorphologists could explain the genesis of landforms in only one way—on the basis of catastrophic events. Everything had to occur quickly and therefore violently.

Landform theories of the 18th and 19th centuries

catastrophism

      During the late 18th and early 19th century, the leading proponent of this view was the German mineralogist Abraham Gottlob Werner (Werner, Abraham Gottlob). According to Werner, all of the Earth's rocks were formed by rapid chemical precipitation from a “world ocean,” which he then summarily disposed of in catastrophic fashion. Though not directed toward the genesis of landforms in any coherent fashion, his catastrophic philosophy of changes of the Earth had two major consequences of geomorphic significance. First, it indirectly led to the formulation of an opposing, less extreme view by the Scottish scientist James Hutton in 1785. Second, it was in some measure correct: catastrophes do occur on the Earth and they do change its landforms. Asteroid impacts, Krakatoa-type volcanic explosions, hurricanes, floods, and tectonic erosion of mountain systems all occur, may be catastrophic, and can create and destroy landforms. Yet, not all change is catastrophic.

uniformitarianism

      The Huttonian (Hutton, James) proposal that the Earth has largely achieved its present form through the past occurrence of processes still in operation has come to be known as the doctrine of uniformitarianism. This is a geologic rather than a simply geomorphic doctrine. It is, however, more nearly aimed at actual surficial changes that pertain to landforms than were Werner's notions. The idea championed by Hutton formed the basis of what is now often referred to as process geomorphology. In this area of study, research emphasis is placed on observing what can be accomplished by a contemporary geologic agency such as running water. Later, the role of moving ice, gravity, and wind in the molding of valleys and hillslopes came to be appreciated by study of these phenomena. Uniformitarianism also became the working principle for a growing number of geologic historians, notably William Smith and Sir Charles Lyell (Lyell, Sir Charles, Baronet), in the 19th century. This was necessary as Lyell argued increasingly that geologic change was incremental and gradual. He needed a longer time scale if this approach was to work, and geologic historians were finding it for him.

Gradualism

      Lyell's concept of gradualism and accompanying process observation on an expanded time scale resulted in firmly establishing the fact that much could be accomplished by small forces working constantly for long periods. That conclusion is consistent even with present-day thought. Lyell's almost total rejection of any geologic process that was abrupt and suggestive of catastrophe, however, was in itself an extreme posture. Research has shown that both gradual and rapid changes occur.

      In the philosophical climate established by Hutton's uniformitarianism and Lyell's gradualism, geomorphologists of the 19th century realized many impressive accomplishments. Most notable among these were the studies of glacial phenomena in Europe by Johann von Charpentier (Charpentier, Johann von) and Louis Agassiz (Agassiz, Louis) and the investigations of regional denudation in the American West by Grove K. Gilbert (Gilbert, Grove Karl) and Clarence E. Dutton (Dutton, Clarence Edward), which emphasized the work of running water. The findings pertaining to glaciers still stand for the most part, and Gilbert's hydraulic studies laid the groundwork for modern ideas. Yet, neither he nor Dutton made comprehensive theoretical proposals of terrestrial morphogenesis of a scope that could match those of the aforementioned W.M. Davis.

Davis' (Davis, William Morris) erosion cycle (geomorphic cycle) theory and related concepts

The geographic cycle

 Beginning in 1899, Davis proposed that denudation of the land occurs in what he called “the geographical cycle.” According to Davis, this cycle is initiated by an uplift of an area above sea level, followed by a wearing down of the surface through the action of running water and gravity until either the region is worn away (base leveled) or the events are interrupted by renewed uplift (Figure 1—>). It was further explained that such a cycle of erosion occurs under conditions of a rain-and-rivers environment (what present-day investigators would call a humid climate), which were assumed to reflect the normal climate for the Earth. The fact that Davis dismissed glacial phenomena as accidents of climate and viewed climatic areas as geographically fixed afforded his theory more latitude. Furthermore, Davis proposed the idea of a separate arid geographical cycle in 1905. In all cases, erosive (erosion) power was presumed to be controlled primarily by slope; hence, the cyclic system was slowed down as the land was leveled and relief and elevation were diminished. The end point of a low-inclination landform was termed a peneplain, and it was said to be locally surmounted by erosionally resistant highs called monadnocks (monadnock). The peneplain as a whole was presumed to be graded to regional base level (in all likelihood mean sea level) by denudational agencies (e.g., running water), which were supposedly controlled by this datum.

      The provisions of Davis' erosion cycle run counter to at least half of the 25 constraints on theories of landform evolution listed above. The Davisian erosion cycle theory is hurt by three factors in particular: (1) the presently understood need for continuous isostatic uplift during erosion, (2) the climatic variability displayed by most lands, and (3) the hydraulic behaviour of rivers noted by Gilbert that precludes valley alluviation under normal humid conditions and limits base-level influences over interior slopes.

      The notion of an erosion cycle initiated by uplift is still possible within known constraints. Such a cycle is only possible under one particular climatic umbrella, however, and under much more limited geographic and hydrographic circumstances than Davis had assumed. Moreover, the morphological sets of landforms selected by Davis as chronological “mile posts” for his cycle of landform change (i.e., stages of development) have been found to constitute special, generally polygenetic arrays of landscape features that reflect the interplay of several environments and that have little or no sequential time significance.

Davisian dynamic equilibrium

      Davis' contribution to the theory of landform evolution also includes the idea of process interruption as a means of accelerating change (rejuvenation) and the notion of process slowing in a late stage of process evolution as energy is consumed. The latter idea comes close to the present-day description of dynamic equilibrium, or attainment of a steady-state (climax) environment and parallels modern thinking on entropy relationships.

 Davis proposed his scheme of landscape development stages close on the heels of Charles Darwin's theory of organic evolution, and his designations “youth,” “maturity,” and “old age” (Figure 1—>) are blatantly anthropomorphic. Thus, it is quite understandable why they had, at the turn of the century, such appeal and acceptance in spite of their actual lack of chronological significance. Their continued use is less comprehensible.

The geomorphic concepts of Penck and King

 The theoretical groundwork laid by Davis for geomorphic evolution was further developed in a rather special fashion in 1924 by Walther Penck (Penck, Walther) of Germany, and subsequently (1953) championed with variations by Lester C. King of South Africa. Both retained some Davisian devices, including peneplain, graded stream, and base-level control of erosion surfaces in Penck's case and the latter two in King's. Each thought that tectonic uplift punctuated the erosion cycle by initiating renewed stream incision, and each utilized the concept of parallel retreat of fluvial-structural escarpments to generate plains. King designated the planation process pedimentation, and his end point “pediplains” were surmounted by inselbergs (inselberg) (isolated hills standing above plains, the name being derived from the German term for “island mountains”) rather than monadnocks. Because the resulting stair-stepped landscapes (Treppen, the German word for “steps”) of scarps and flats (Figure 2—>) were presumed to reflect tectonics and to be correlatable, the term Tectonic Geomorphic School has been applied to its advocates.

      The notion of geomorphologists that denudational landforms reflecting tectonic pulses were sufficiently synchronized on a global basis to be correlatable has suffered much from the development of the plate tectonics theory (see plate tectonics). The separate notion that hillslopes, once developed, retreated laterally to produce a low-inclination surface worthy of a special name (pediment–pediplain) has found more support.

      In retrospect, Penck's Treppen concept seems to suffer much of the same theoretical damage as Davis' geographical cycle, but it is generally less ingenious. Like Davis, Penck and King made no dynamic use of climatic influences, and in fact the latter went so far as to claim that climate makes no difference. Moreover, like Davis, neither King nor Penck acknowledged the isostatic implications for erosion established nearly a century earlier. King suggested that sheetfloods “mold” the surfaces of pediments and depicted sparsely vegetated regions where this might be possible under the label semiarid. More recent work suggests that sheetfloods may be a product, rather than a cause, of the “flat” terrain on which they occur. The so-called molding would appear to be the result of desert stream-flood processes operating to local base levels in the absence of appreciable plant cover, as will be discussed below.

      There is an implied landform “chronology” for a geomorphic system tied to intermittent uplift, as suggested by Penck and King, though dating such events is not readily accomplished. Furthermore, King tied his planation method to a regional sea-level erosional datum that the aforementioned constraints throw into question. Perhaps the principal contribution of the Penck–King theoretical ensemble has to do with the concept of lateral escarpment retreat, as opposed to the wearing down of lands favoured by Davis. There are in fact landforms that are widely acknowledged to be pediments. They are planar in form, truncate a wide variety of bedrock types, and can most readily be explained by scarp retreat under non-vegetated conditions. Debate continues about how much or how little moisture best encourages this process. Yet, at least the general nature of the mechanism seems to have been identified (largely by detailed studies in the area of process geomorphology) and the hydraulic constraints established by Gilbert and others seem to be satisfied.

 In essence, it has been found that runoff deposits sediment in deserts where its excess transport energy is dissipated by volume loss caused by infiltration and evaporation. Runoff upslope from the depositional base level established by the long-term locus of deposition cannot erode below the resulting deposit (Figure 3—>). Such overland flow must expend its energy against non-vegetated hillslopes, resulting in their backwearing.

      The pedimentation (pediment) phenomenon must rank as one of the more astute geomorphic insights, regardless of the fact that the hydraulic and sedimentologic details involved were not established until later. Today, this form of land planation in association with alluvial aggradation in deserts, stream incision that establishes regional drainage networks and augments relief under humid conditions as described by Davis, and glacial scour and deposition as elucidated by Charpentier, Agassiz, and others stand as the three most widely established morphogenetic systems on Earth.

Climatic morphogenesis

Morphogenetic (morphogenetic region) area

      Notions that climate plays a major dynamic role in landform evolution were in evidence during the first decade of the 20th century, but did not emerge in formalized theory until the mid-1900s. At that time, German geographer Julius Büdel and several French geomorphologists, particularly Jean Tricart, André Cailleux, and Louis C. Peltier, began to employ the concept of a morphogenetic area—defined as a region in which a particular set of landforms is being generated under a particular climate. Only slowly, however, and mainly from studies in the tropics did it come to be appreciated how extreme the regional climate shifts between arid and humid have been on the different continents. Davis long ago understood how distinctive the geomorphic mechanisms of humid and arid lands were. It was, however, the new evidence of wide geographic mobility for such environments that forced the recognition of the morphogenetic, or geomorphic, system. Such a system is defined as a group of agencies and processes interacting under a particular environment to produce a landscape. Because morphogenetic areas and their systems can displace each other, it follows that they would leave behind relict landforms, soils, deposits, organisms, and so forth.

      The discovery of widespread climatic dynamism and the correlative recognition of plate-tectonic phenomena created a whole new theoretical situation for geomorphologists. Not a single theory of regional landform development existing in 1950 accounted for the constraints imposed by the new climatic and tectonic findings in any significant way.

Interactions between geomorphic systems

      Climates change and periodically impose one of the foregoing geomorphic systems on the relicts left by one of the others. In addition, areas of each climatic type export matter to adjacent morphogenetic areas and thereby modify the resulting landforms. For example, deserts export dust by eolian means, and the resulting deposits modify soil profiles in downwind regions, as in the eastern United States, or create actual depositional landforms of loess, as in Shansi Province of China on the lee of the Ordos Desert. River systems arising in humid lands develop their drainage networks therein and then may encroach on downslope deserts to create alluvial riverine plains where their flow will not maintain their sediment transport to some distant ocean. Alternatively, rivers form deltas following climate change when their sediment loads and flow are sufficient and the débouché (point of emergence) is protected. Glaciers produce their changes on ice-covered realms and then export their outwash deposits into whatever environment is downslope.

Tectonic geomorphology

      In addition to the usual climatic imprints, orogenic tectonism (diastrophism) (including volcanism) adds its obvious dimensions of elevation and slope to any surficial environment it encounters. It is now clear that orogenic realms in their early phases create gravitational opportunities for Earth sculpture that hardly exist elsewhere. The usual mechanisms for concomitantly gradualistic denudation by ice, wind, and running water are set aside in orogenic belts by relatively rapid uplifts of material ranging from nearly unconsolidated sediment to semicoherent but intensely deformed masses of metamorphic and igneous rocks. Under these conditions, masses of rock measured in thousands of cubic kilometres are torn loose by gravity and fall and/or slide, often moving hundreds of kilometres in a “geologic instant” to a lower resting place (in some cases lubricated by subaqueous avenues). The term catastrophic seems most appropriate for an occurrence of this type.

      Sculpturing of the Earth is thus seen as more than the mere gradual removal of weathered debris by mechanisms under the control of climatic regimes. The Kamchatka Peninsula in the far eastern part of Siberia is said to have more than 100 active volcanoes. Not surprisingly its terrain is dominated by volcanic landforms. The Afar Triangle at the foot of the Red Sea is shaped by newly formed faults that cut unweathered basaltic lava flows on a newly emergent seafloor in an almost totally tectonic landscape. In the Appalachians (Appalachian Mountains), south of the glaciated knobs, an ancient mountain system sheathed by thick saprolitic soils on its upper slopes exhibits ridge-ravine topography and may have been in a humid climatic nucleus for 100,000,000 years. Yet, the same region retains water gaps and entrenched meanders that echo drainage patterns established long ago, probably on alluvial cover masses of Early Mesozoic age (roughly 225,000,000 years old) following an arid-to-humid climate change at the end of the Jurassic Period (about 146,000,000 years ago). In the same area, tropical soils and ridge-top lateritic deposits of Georgia and Alabama reflect weathering conditions established 150,000,000 years ago when southeastern North America was still in the tropics before recent northwesterly continental drift.

Consideration of unique landforms and other distinctive topographic features

      There are, of course, instances where special types of bedrock combine with particular weathering and erosion regimes to produce unique landforms and landscapes. Best known perhaps are the solutional effects expressed as karst topography. This is most pronounced in limestone terrain, such as that in Kentucky in the southeastern United States and the Karst plateau in Yugoslavia, as well as those in parts of northeast China and on islands like Puerto Rico and Jamaica. In tropical realms where silica is more soluble, similar landforms may develop on other varieties of sedimentary rock or on igneous or metamorphic types, as, for example, quartzite in the isolated plateau remnants of the Venezuelan Guiana Shield. The humid climatic conditions that promote solution production and dripstone formation are readily apparent in such tropical areas.

      Granitic (granite) terrain in several parts of the world also gives rise to a distinctive array of landforms that include domed erosion residuals, often in patterns closely tied to joint spacing in bedrock as noted by the Australian geomorphologist C.R. Twidale. In regions where alternating humid and arid climates or human activity have led to erosional stripping of weathered zones, mammoth boulder piles of exhumed core stones exist. Such features are especially notable on the island of Hong Kong, in southern Brazil, in parts of India and Australia, and in the St. Francois Mountain region of Missouri in the United States.

Theoretical overview

      The complexities of terrestrial surface change demand a theoretical overview that is both flexible and multifaceted. Oversimplified, sweeping landscape generalizations that apply to the whole Earth such as the postulates of Davis and King can hardly be employed when dealing with a planet where virtually every geomorphic element constitutes a potential interruption or complication to every other system. Nevertheless, there do seem to be certain kinds of activity that are repeated sporadically in both tectonic and climatic realms. These repetitions encourage the re-creation of particular suites of landforms and could be taken to imply a certain rationality to events. However, they probably are no more rational than eddies in a river that develop only where possible.

      Matters of geographic and chronological scale also enter into the question of what is indeed geomorphically possible and repeatable. The interplay between density variations in matter and gravity dictates that the Earth's core (once formed) must remain firmly fixed, and so too must the lighter substances that make up the lithosphere. Concentration of the least dense solids in the continents is involved in a complex process now associated with plate tectonics, and it is at this level that a discussion of landform evolution must begin.

      Although the designers of the plate tectonics theoretical framework did not single out continents as landforms of a special kind, such is one of the basic consequences of that theoretical construct. Continents are first-order landforms, and there seemingly will be only one cycle of continental denudation in the history of the Earth. It began with the earliest concentration of continental lithosphere at the surface, and it presumably will end, as suggested above, when the last endogenic forces (i.e., those within the Earth) expire and gravity and entropy have their way as the internal systems of the planet run down. The details (in the context of the 8,000,000,000- to 10,000,000,000-year span of this cycle) hardly matter, since the results are inevitable—unless, of course, the Sun becomes a nova and disrupts things.

      Second-order features on continents consist primarily of mountains (mountain) and the relatively low-elevation areas that come into existence as the mountains rise. In the context of continental landforms, mountains and the geomorphic systems that act upon them are unique in that the uplift creates an excess of potential energy, one far above that of the remaining land area. Landform evolution in mountains is necessarily skewed by this special kind of excess energy. Davis seemed to sense this in his theorizing, but he did not understand the limits on slope as a denudational influence and the variety of climatic and tectonic factors at work.

Orogenic and epeirogenic morphogenesis

Orogenic (orogeny) geomorphic systems

      Such mountain-building systems evolve in the special contexts of type, setting, and style. The principal orogenic varieties recognized are (1) mountains of continent-continent collision type formed by lithospheric plate interaction along continental margins, (2) mountains of the collision type associated with oceanic trenches (sometimes developed along a single continental margin) with an adjacent plate-tectonic subduction system (see below), and (3) rift-type mountains extending into continental interiors where transcurrent faults shear cratons and deform associated sediment veneers or where spreading zones develop to create fault-block (horst-graben) mountainous terrain. Geologic time is sufficient for several orogenic events of each type to have occurred, and different rules apply to the geomorphic evolution of any given type.

      Mountains of the continent-continent collision type have special attributes that direct their geomorphic evolution. These distinctive characteristics are the following:

● The collision creating the mountains incorporates a finite volume of rock that is not augmented following the collision.

● The orogenic rock mass is subject to isostatic uplift during denudation; in general, sedimentary rock types are exposed first, followed by crystalline varieties.

● The collision that initiates such orogenesis ultimately adds rock to the adjacent craton, and in thickening the adjacent crust often initiates nearby cratonic tilting and/or uplift.

● Because such mountains develop between continents and are thus elevated in the midst of a consequent megacontinent (Pangaea in the case of the Appalachians), they are far from oceanic evaporation sources and therefore often undergo initial denudation under arid geomorphic systems in the manner of the present mountains of central Asia.

● As the climatic setting of such mountains is largely established tectonically, it may endure in the same climate for scores of millions of years and, as noted in 1901 by the American geomorphologist Douglas W. Johnson, a desert mountain range tends to bury itself in its own waste.

● Re-exposure of such mountains to nearby precipitation sources by plate adjustments may result in dramatic climate changes from arid to humid, so that perennial fluvial erosion is widely initiated on a relict arid, alluvial cover mass with resulting transverse drainage by superimposition. In illustration, one can compare the Appalachian Mountains of North America and the Zagros Mountains of Iran, as described by the American geomorphologist Theodore M. Oberlander in 1965.

● Because of their finite initial rock volume, mountains of the continent-continent collision type can be lowered by erosion, somewhat in the manner visualized by Davis. No such structures more than 500,000,000 years old show mountainous relief.

● Volcanic (volcanism) landforms are rarely a part of the topography during orogenesis of this mountain type.

      Mountains of the collision type associated with oceanic trenches (deep-sea trench) have their own distinct attributes that control evolution. These are as follows:

● The merging of a pair of lithospheric plates along a deep-sea trench initiates orogenesis tied to the subduction process (i.e., the sinking of one plate beneath another at convergent plate boundaries).

● Rock mass is added to the orogenic belt via subduction as long as the trench remains “operational.”

● Denudation accompanies uplift and may reduce rock mass in the orogenic system in the long run, but whether the total mass is growing, shrinking, or static depends on the budget established by additions from subduction versus losses from erosion.

● Mountainous elevations tend to increase through much of the life of the orogenic system, since rock lost through erosion is generally removed locally and linearly by rivers and glaciers (the Andes exemplify the type bordering a continent, and they appear to be higher now than at any time since they began to form 150,000,000 years ago).

● Because mountains of the trench-associated subduction type develop and endure adjacent to an ocean on at least one side, they are subject to climatic variability tied to such factors as latitudinal position, orientation with respect to prevailing wind patterns, ocean surface temperatures, and progressively increasing elevations.

● Examples such as the Andes that border a continent can show alternating segments that are highly volcanic.

● Andean types also may display highly contrasting denudational systems under a variety of climatic conditions on opposite sides as well as along the length of the range.

● Although an erosion cycle resulting in overall lowering of a trench-associated mountain system does not appear viable as long as the trench endures, a complex steady-state mass situation would seem to be one potential development during this time.

● Occasionally orogenesis related to trench-continent interaction may extend far inland; the parts of the Andes exhibiting this trait display mechanical rock deformation but little volcanism, and a similar genetic mechanism has been suggested for the Rocky Mountains of North America.

● During their early years, the Rocky Mountains displayed volcanic phases accompanied by upthrusting but now seem tectonically quiescent and are apparently experiencing denudational lowering.

      Rift-type mountains are primarily of the block-fault variety. They have the following set of special attributes:

● Block-fault mountains appear to originate where a spreading ridge of the plate-tectonic type develops.

● On continents, the spreading is expressed in high-angle faulting and may be accompanied by volcanism of tholeiitic basalt type.

● Rifting may be limited to linear zones, as in the Rift Valley system of East Africa, or may be more broadly expressed, as in the Basin and Range Province of the western United States.

● The extent of rifting may be limited to mere surficial fracturing of the continental crust, or it may extend to actual rupturing of a lithospheric plate and renewal of seafloor spreading, as occurred along the Atlantic seaboard of North America at the end of the Jurassic.

● Because block-fault mountains are of endogenic origin, they may occur in and experience a variety of denudational environments. The examples from Africa and North America cited above are in settings ranging from arid to humid. The highest such mountains show glacial effects.

      For a detailed discussion of mountains and their evolution, see mountain.

Climatically dominated epeirogenic (epeirogeny) realms

      The epeirogenic portions of continents (i.e., those that have escaped orogenesis in the past 500,000,000 years) experience denudation in a situation in which the slope factor, if at all tectonic in origin, is regional in expression and so gentle as to exert little influence beyond giving direction to flowing water or ice. It is these regions that variously exhibit veneers of sedimentary rock largely accumulated in epicontinental seas over the past 500,000,000 years or that expose in shield areas the roots of worn-down mountain systems. In the absence of notable tectonism, it is not surprising to find that morphogenesis on stable cratons is dominated by climate. Vast expanses of cratons situated away from mountain belts either are occupied by temperate and tropical forests and grasslands or are seared by desert heat and wind. Only Antarctica currently supports a continental ice sheet, but both North America and Eurasia show they recently did so as well. It is in these epeirogenic regions that morphogenesis is most significantly punctuated by climate change. With few exceptions, the landforms are polygenetic. Many of the most recent glacial deposits scarcely show the incipient soil development begun under humid conditions only a few thousand years ago. Furthermore, broadly forested, humid regions still exhibit patches of cacti and alluvium left there when they were deserts. Therein, the notable slopes are denudational in origin; the steeper ones were usually developed by stream incision and the more gentle ones commonly were produced by alluviation and/or pedimentation.

A unified landform theory

      Viewed in their entirety, the individual concepts that pertain to landform development so far discussed (catastrophism, uniformitarianism, gradualism, erosion cycle, dynamic equilibrium, disequilibrium, geomorphic system, morphogenetic area, tectonic geomorphology, and orogenic and epeirogenic morphogenesis) have to date been treated by theorists as independent conceptual constructs rather than as geomorphic elements of a unified comprehensive theory. There is a close parallel between this situation and the fable of the several blind men who decided what an elephant is by touching only individual parts of the animal. Each of their geomorphic concepts has a measure of validity, but the earliest ideas were formulated on the basis of very incomplete information. When considered in the context of the entire solar system, in which there is a group of planetary geomorphic entities, the theoretical pieces begin to fall into more distinctly rational positions. Although a degree of variability is imposed by planetary location and by early differentiation of cosmic material, randomness in the solar system is incomplete because of the directional factors imposed by gravity, radiation, and increasing entropy. For any given planet, there are two potential geomorphic factors: (1) exogenic impact (meteorite crater) phenomena from solar debris possibly modified by tidal disruption caused by nearby planetoids, or radiation phenomena tied mainly to the Sun resulting principally in climatic influences and biologic activity, and (2) endogenic phenomena related to internal heating and expressed as tectonism and volcanism, as on the Earth. Morphogenesis occurs in accordance with interaction between planetary subsystems associated with the above factors.

Behaviour of geomorphic systems

      Gravity-driven geomorphic systems are potentially cyclical in terms of the elimination of excess relief and elevation. They exhibit activity that graphs in a two-phase form—namely the initial disequilibrium occurring when free energy and relief are maximal (and the results are frequently catastrophic), and subsequent dynamic equilibrium where relief and elevation are nearly eliminated and free energy available to do work is so low that change is nearly imperceptible. The latter behaviour is clearly gradualistic. Such systems must be disturbed by outside forces in order for the cycle to be interrupted or reinitiated.

      In the solar system the cycle of accretionary, gravity-propelled impact morphogenesis that creates cratered surfaces and high relief is in a distinctly waning phase. Such activity apparently reached a peak within the first 1,000,000,000 years after the planetary system was formed and is not likely to be renewed. Its expression is epitomized by the surface of objects such as the Moon and the planet Mercury, where the near absence of endogenic tectonic forces has left impact effects most intact. On the Earth and a few other planets (or satellites), internal heating propels orogenesis and thereby periodically renews gravity-driven geomorphic cycles. As noted earlier, there will be only one continent-forming cycle in the history of the Earth.

      Radiation (solar radiation)-driven geomorphic systems are tied to the Sun's nuclear fusion processes and the fluctuations therein. Because of atmosphere and organisms, solar effects are most singularly manifested on the Earth as morphogenetic areas characterized by a particular climate and associated processes. The geomorphic changes in such areas are cyclical largely with respect to the destruction of relict features exposed to the system as the morphogenic areas move and also with respect to the creation of landforms (residual landform) and deposits in morphological equilibrium with the new system. Changes in landforms, deposits, and processes also graph in two phases after the initiation of a system or after a perturbation in one. These landform changes are initially time-indicative, and unless morphogenesis has attained a dynamic equilibrium phase, the partially altered relict features may permit reconstruction of the events of landform evolution.

 It will be noted from the above that there is a close relationship between process and form in the dynamic equilibrium phase of radiationally driven geomorphic systems. In morphogenetic areas in states of disequilibrium, form (strongly influenced by relict features) may show little or no consistency with process, which may have just been initiated. Relict features in the process of transformation, such as a desert or a glacial alluvial deposit in a valley being reworked by a perennial stream, thus constitute hybrid features (compare with Davis' mature stream in Figure 1B—>). The stream valley illustrated has a flat floor unlike that of a late-phase humid valley which has a V-shaped cross profile. Furthermore, the “hybrid” stream is not behaving as it would if there were no alluvium, and the alluvium is not the same after the stream has partially reworked it.

      Occasionally, the sequence of geomorphic events may conspire to preserve a form that is foreign to the associated geomorphic system and processes. The sinuous paths of entrenched meanders that are cut into bedrock in such regions as the Appalachians express the granular surface and sediment-water volume relations that prevailed when the flow pattern was initiated in the Mesozoic rather than those of the present.

The concept of periodic random dominance

      On the Earth, gravity- and radiation-driven geomorphic systems interact independently, so that their two types of activity can mingle under conditions of periodic random dominance. Thus, peak energy expenditures engendered by each type of system may or may not coincide geographically. Maximum rates of landform change occur where active orogenesis mingles with changing climates. Minimal change occurs where epeirogenic regions are occupied by morphogenic areas that are in states of dynamic equilibrium. In this arrangement of interacting geomorphic systems, there is clearly a place for both catastrophe and gradualism. There also is a place for cycles of erosion of several kinds and for dynamic equilibrium, either as an end phase of enduring climatic morphogenesis and/or as an end phase of relief and elevation reduction by denudation following orogenesis.

      The concept of periodic random dominance as an aspect of landform evolution carries with it the implication of polygenetic landforms and landscapes where geomorphic system dominance fails to develop. Indeed, dominance becomes the special case because it is dependent on a particular juxtaposition of tectonic and/or climatic elements over a protracted interval in a given area. One estimate places polygenetic landforms over approximately 80 percent of the Earth's land surface. Perhaps 20 percent is experiencing some type of geomorphic system dominance—less than 10 percent if Antarctica is omitted from the calculations.

Process geomorphology and systems equilibria

      Details of landform evolution within a given geomorphic system are matters of process behaviour and terrain response. In the context of geomorphic system dominance versus systemic alternation, two general situations exist: (1) those agencies operating in contact with relicts that they are modifying, often quite rapidly, and (2) those in contact with equilibrium features that they have created and have little or no ability to modify further. The principal surficial geomorphic agencies on Earth—wind, running water, glacial ice, and gravity—in any given geomorphic system induce processes that tend to evolve toward a situation of least work. Polygenetic terrain is usually some combination of hillslopes and “flats,” and either topographic type may dominate in the latter part of a geomorphic cycle, depending on whether the system tends to generate relief or reduce it.

      Natural geomorphic systems operating along the Earth's surface are classified as open, since they are powered by external energy sources. Because the rates of both endogenetic and exogenetic energy input vary, the coordinate agencies experience changes analogous to power surges in an electrical system. Thus rivers receiving excess runoff periodically flood. The atmosphere locally builds up excess heat, and the transfer of this heat is expressed in storms. Glaciers, normally the epitome of slowness, can acquire a mass-energy excess and consequently surge. In all instances, energy available for erosion, transportation, and deposition of sediment varies greatly over time. In addition, the interaction between solids, fluids, and gases results in turbulence, eddy formation, shearing and vortex activity, and periodic local stagnation.

      In response to the foregoing situations, process associations within individual geomorphic systems exhibit typical systems phenomena, including “feedback,” “threshold reactions,” and evolution toward dynamic equilibrium (least-work) modes. Where a system is periodically perturbed, processes can pass back and forth between disequilibrium and steady-state conditions rather frequently.

      The behaviour and apparent process direction of an individual agency may not reflect the evolution of the overall geomorphic system. For example, a 10,000-year-long episode leading to the formation of an alluvial fan may be seen to include numerous incidents of fan-head trenching that are separately destructive but subordinate to depositional events dominating the trend. Similarly, a river such as the Mississippi (Mississippi River) that is reworking a relict alluvial deposit in a valley may be seen to be depositing gravel on point bars on the insides of bends. The long-term consequence of the river's activity, however, will be to remove the entire alluvial deposit in its path, including the point bars, unless subject to systemic interruption. (Humankind has of course “short-circuited” the natural evolution of the Mississippi and that of many other rivers with engineering modifications.)

      From the foregoing, it seems evident that the direction of landform evolution can only be grasped from the study of geomorphic process if the character and role of relict landforms and deposits are clearly understood. This is an obvious complication in the application of Hutton's doctrine of uniformitarianism.

      The concept of periodic geomorphic system dominance provides the rational potential end point of landform evolution under a particular set of conditions. Ideally, it may yield either modified or unmodified tectonic landscapes. These in turn may be either orogenic or epeirogenic. Where modified, they may express marine effects and/or glacial, arid, or humid morphogenesis. Antithetically, where more common polygenetic morphogenesis occurs, some mixture of tectonic, marine, or climatic effects is superimposed on the setting, and a hybrid suite of landforms results.

Hessle Filmore Garner

Additional Reading

The seminal works of William Morris Davis, especially his 1899 essay “The Geographical Cycle” and his 1905 essay “The Geographical Cycle in an Arid Climate,” both reprinted in Geographical Essays (1909, reprinted 1954), paved the way for Walther Penck, Morphological Analysis of Land Forms: A Contribution to Physical Geology (1953, reprinted 1972; originally published in German, 1924); and for Lester C. King, “Canons of Landscape Evolution,” Bulletin of the Geological Society of America, 64:721–752 (1953). Davis' thinking continued to dominate geomorphic theory in such textbooks as A.K. Lobeck, Geomorphology: An Introduction to the Study of Landscapes (1939); and William D. Thornbury, Principles of Geomorphology, 2nd ed. (1968). The history of geomorphic theory up to the time of Davis is told in Richard J. Chorley, Antony J. Dunn, and Robert P. Beckinsale, The History of the Study of Landforms, 2 vol. (1964–73). Cuchlaine A.M. King (ed.), Landforms and Geomorphology: Concepts and History (1976), contains a historical collection of key papers in the development of geomorphic ideas from 1802 to 1972. Introductory essays on the many aspects of the field may be found in Alistair Pitty (ed.), Geomorphology: Themes and Trends (1985).The first comprehensive attempt to synthesize geomorphic thinking on a systems level that incorporates modern tectonic, climatic, and process aspects is H.F. Garner, The Origin of Landscapes: A Synthesis of Geomorphology (1974). An analysis of these and other geomorphic theories to date appeared in William N. Melhorn and Ronald C. Flemal (eds.), Theories of Landform Development (1975, reissued 1980). More restricted aspects of geomorphology are dealt with in Luna B. Leopold, M. Gordon Wolman, and John P. Miller, Fluvial Processes in Geomorphology (1964); G.H. Dury (ed.), Essays in Geomorphology (1966); J. Tricart and A. Cailleux, Introduction to Climatic Geomorphology (1972, translated by Conrad J. Kiewiet de Jonge; originally published in French, 1965); Robert V. Ruhe, Geomorphology: Geomorphic Processes and Surficial Geology (1975); C.R. Twidale, Analysis of Landforms (1975, reprinted 1976); R.J. Rice, Fundamentals of Geomorphology (1977); Dale F. Ritter, Process Geomorphology, 2nd ed. (1986); Rita Gardner and Helen Scoging (eds.), Mega-Geomorphology (1983); Julius Büdel, Climatic Geomorphology (1982: translated by Lenore Fischer and Detlef Busche, originally published in German from 1948–); and Colin E. Thorn, An Introduction to Theoretical Geomorphology (1988).Hessle Filmore Garner

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