Geomorphology Vignettes

These illustrated essays have been contributed by participants in the Teaching Geomorphology in the 21st Century workshop in 2008. The vignettes are drafts that are being written and revised by the participants and are not finished products.



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Plateau Glaciers and their significance
Brian Whalley, niversity of Sheffield
Plateaus exist in many mountainous parts of the world. Although not as spectacular as high, prominent peaks, they do often have (or have had in the past) glaciers associated with them. In this vignette I describe ...

Subject: Geomorphology: Geoscience:Geology:Geomorphology:Landforms/Processes:Glacial/Periglacial, Geoscience:Geology:Geomorphology:Landscape Evolution, Dating and Rates, Landforms/Processes, Climate/Paleoclimate
Vignette Type: Process, Chronology

Rock glaciers: their ice and debris balances
Brian Whalley, niversity of Sheffield
Rock glaciers are best defined by their topography (Fig. 1) and that they flow slowly. Their dynamic character is attributed to the flow of ice deforming the associated weathered rock debris. Typically, they flow ...

Subject: Geomorphology: Geoscience:Geology:Geomorphology:Landforms/Processes:Glacial/Periglacial, Geoscience:Geology:Geomorphology:Landforms/Processes, Geomorphology as applied to other disciplines, Dating and Rates, Landforms/Processes:Mass Movement, Geoscience:Geology:Geomorphology:Climate/Paleoclimate
Vignette Type: Chronology, Process, Computation

Cold climate conditions as a driver of alluvial fan deposition in the Lost River Range, Idaho, USA
Megan Kenworthy, Center for Ecohydraulics Research, University of Idaho, Boise
Numerous large alluvial fans sit along the western front of the Lost River Range (LRR) in east-central Idaho, USA (Figure 1). These alluvial fans form where streams exit confined basins within the mountain range, ...

Subject: Geomorphology: Geoscience:Geology:Geomorphology:Landforms/Processes:Fluvial, Geoscience:Geology:Geomorphology:Dating and Rates, Landforms/Processes:Glacial/Periglacial, Hillslopes, Geoscience:Geology:Geomorphology:Landforms/Processes, Climate/Paleoclimate, GIS/Mapping/Field Techniques
Vignette Type: Stratigraphy, Chronology

Development of Palimpsest Landscapes
Jasper Knight
In Physical Geography, a palimpsest landscape is one where, in any given region, the different landforms that make up the landscape are not of the same age, with some surface landforms being very young because they ...

Subject: Geomorphology: Geoscience:Geology:Geomorphology:Landscape Evolution, Landforms/Processes, Modeling/Physical Experiments, Weathering/Soils, Geomorphology as applied to other disciplines, Landforms/Processes:Glacial/Periglacial, Hillslopes, Fluvial, Geoscience:Geology:Geomorphology:Dating and Rates, Climate/Paleoclimate
Vignette Type: Chronology, Process, Stratigraphy

Lightning as a Geomorphic Agent in Low-Latitude Mountains
Jasper Knight
It is often assumed that high mountain environments are dominated by the geomorphic imprints of cold-climate weathering and erosion processes, forming angular bedrock fragments that are commonly found across ...

Subject: Geomorphology: Geoscience:Geology:Geomorphology:Landforms/Processes:Hillslopes, Geoscience:Geology:Geomorphology:Landscape Evolution, Weathering/Soils, Landforms/Processes:Glacial/Periglacial, Geoscience:Geology:Geomorphology:Landforms/Processes, Climate/Paleoclimate
Vignette Type: Stratigraphy, Process

Fire geomorphology: Fire-related erosion helps to shape our landscapes
Kerry Riley
The frequency of large wildfires has increased on all vegetated continents (Bowman et al., 2009). Wildfires can have profound influences on erosion rates, particularly in steep mountain basins. Fire-related ...

Subject: Geomorphology: Geoscience:Geology:Geomorphology:Landforms/Processes:Fluvial, Mass Movement, Geoscience:Geology:Geomorphology:Landforms/Processes, Dating and Rates, Landforms/Processes:Hillslopes, Geoscience:Geology:Geomorphology:Climate/Paleoclimate
Vignette Type: Stratigraphy, Process, Chronology

Great Basin Dunes and Winds: What Might They Tell Us About the Geologic Record?
Paul Jewell, University of Utah
Dune fields have long been recognized as important geomorphic features of continents, both on the modern Earth and in the geologic record. While dunes can exhibit a variety of morphologies (McKee, 1979), they ...

Subject: Geomorphology: Geoscience:Geology:Geomorphology:Arid Region Geomorphology, Climate/Paleoclimate
Vignette Type: Process

A new deglacial chronology of the Laurentide Ice Sheet in Wisconsin
David Ullman, University of Wisconsin-Madison
During the past 2.5 million years, the earth has seen a series of major ice sheets built through the slow accumulation of snow, followed by warming and rapid ice collapse. This fluctuation in global ice sheets is ...

Subject: Geomorphology: Geoscience:Geology:Geomorphology:Landforms/Processes:Glacial/Periglacial, Geoscience:Geology:Geomorphology:Dating and Rates, Landforms/Processes, Climate/Paleoclimate
Vignette Type: Chronology

The retreat chronology of the Laurentide Ice Sheet during the last 10,000 years and implications for deglacial sea-level rise
David Ullman, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Much of the world's population is located along the coasts. In a world of changing climate, the rate of sea level rise will determine the ability of these communities to adapt to sea level rise. Perhaps the ...

Subject: Geomorphology: Geoscience:Geology:Geomorphology:Climate/Paleoclimate, Dating and Rates
Vignette Type: Chronology

Fluvial geomorphology in a tank - The scientific value of physical experiments
Nikki Strong, University of Minnesota-Twin Cities
The beauty and utility of experiments is to illuminate the fundamental processes that drive the evolution of natural systems. Experiments help us build intuition for processes that otherwise might be hard to ...

Subject: Geomorphology: Geoscience:Geology:Geomorphology:Landforms/Processes, Landforms/Processes:Fluvial, Coastal-zone, Geoscience:Geology:Geomorphology:Landscape Evolution, Modeling/Physical Experiments, Geoscience:Geology:Tectonics, Geomorphology:Tectonic Geomorphology, Climate/Paleoclimate, Dating and Rates
Vignette Type: Computation, Process, Chronology, Stratigraphy