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.
Subject: Geomorphology Show all
Geoscience > Geology > Geomorphology > Weathering/Soils
34 matchesResults 1 - 10 of 34 matches
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 ...
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 ...
Vignette Type: Stratigraphy, Process
Cracking up: emerging evidence for the importance of the sun in the mechanical weathering of rocks
Martha Eppes, University of North Carolina at Charlotte
Introduction Physical weathering, through the breakdown of rock into sediment, plays a fundamental role in the rock cycle and potentially a key role in landscape evolution. In addition, the physical breakdown of ...
Vignette Type: Process
Soil geomorphology and change over time: A case study from the Catawba River, North Carolina
Anthony Layzell, University of Kansas Main Campus
Despite their value in Quaternary studies, relatively few soil chronosequences or long-term landscape evolution studies exist for the Piedmont physiographic province of the southeastern United States. Investigating ...
Vignette Type: Stratigraphy, Process, Chronology
When a tree falls in the forest, does it make a soil?
Emmanuel Gabet, San Jose State University
When a Tree Falls Over A tree, like most plants, sends roots down into soil and bedrock to absorb water and nutrients. The roots also anchor the tree to the ground and prevents it from tipping over. Strong wind ...
Vignette Type: Process
Soil versus rock-dominated landscapes
Arjun Heimsath, Arizona State University at the Tempe Campus
Introduction When you look at a hilly, gently sloped landscape do you ever wonder why it's covered with soil? Similarly, when you're on your favorite hike through a steep, mountainous landscape do you ...
Vignette Type: Process
The humped soil production function
Arjun Heimsath, Arizona State University at the Tempe Campus
Introduction When you walk across your favorite hill do you ever think about what you're walking on? Ever wonder what's beneath your feet and why it's there? If you've wondered about the soil ...
Vignette Type: Process
Soil-water-rock interactions I: The pediment problem
Mark Strudley
You may have not initially appreciated that piedmonts (landscapes between steep mountain masses and depositional basins) are not all covered by alluvial fans. In fact, piedmonts, along with adjoining low-relief ...
Vignette Type: Computation, Process
Soils, relict landscapes and paleoclimate in the Atacama Desert, Chile
Jason Rech, Miami University-Oxford
The exceptionally dry Atacama Desert, adjacent to the Central Andes in northern Chile, contains many relict landscapes (landscapes formed in the past, but preserved on the present surface; Figure 1). One remarkable ...
Vignette Type: Chronology, Stratigraphy
Eolian Landforms and Deposits of the Eastern Snake River Plain, Idaho
William Phillips, University of Idaho
The Eastern Snake River Plain (ESRP) is a northeast-trending, 300 kilometer-long depression underlain by Cenozoic volcanic rocks (Fig. 1). Well-known for many examples of volcanic landforms including basalt lava ...
Vignette Type: Chronology, Stratigraphy