Historical Geomorphology

WHAT IS GEOMORPHOLOGY?
mix of process geomorphology and historical geomorphology; and that the two subjects should work together rather than stand in polar opposition.
such studies were difficult and largely educated guesswork. However, the brilliant successes of early historical geomorphologists should not be overlooked.
HISTORICAL GEOMORPHOLOGY
All landforms have a history. Such landforms as ripples on beaches and in riverbeds and terracettes on hillslopes tend to be short-lived, so that their history will pass unrecorded unless burial by sediments ensures their survival in the stratigraphic (rock) record. For this reason, geomorphologists with a prime interest in long-term changes usually deal with relatively more persistent landforms at scales ranging from coastal features, landslides, and river terraces, through plains and plateaux, to regional and continental drainage systems. Nonetheless, ripple marks and other small-scale sedimentary features that do manage to survive can provide clues to past processes and events. Historical geomorphology is the study of landform evolution or changes in landforms over medium and long timescales, usually timescales well beyond the span of an individual humans experience centuries, millennia, millions and hundreds of millions of years. It brings in the historical dimension of the subject with all its attendant assumptions and methods, and relies mainly on the form of the land surface and on the sedimentary record for its databases.
William Morris Davis

The geographical cycle, expounded by William Morris Davis, was the first modern theory of landscape evolution (e.g. Davis 1889, 1899, 1909). It assumed that uplift takes place quickly. Geomorphic processes, without further complications from tectonic movements, then gradually wear down the raw topography. Furthermore, slopes within landscapes decline through time maximum slope angles slowly lessen (though few field studies have substantiated this claim). So topography is reduced, little by little, to an extensive flat region close to baselevel a peneplain. The peneplain may contain occasional hills, called monadnocks after Mount Monadnock in New Hampshire, USA, which are local erosional remnants, standing conspicuously above the general level. The reduction process creates a time sequence of landforms that progress through the stages of youth, maturity, and old age. However, these terms, borrowed from biology, are misleading and much censured (e.g. Ollier 1967; Ollier and Pain 1996, 2045). The geographical cycle was designed to account for the development of humid temperate landforms produced by prolonged wearing down of uplifted rocks offering uniform resistance to erosion. It was extended to other landforms, including arid landscapes, glacial landscapes, periglacial landscapes, to landforms produced by shore processes, and to karst landscapes. William Morris Daviss geographical cycle in which landscapes are seen to evolve through stages of youth, maturity, and old age must be regarded as a classic work, even if it has been superseded (Figure 1.6). Its appeal seems to have lain in its theoretical tenor and in its simplicity (Chorley 1965). It had an all-pervasive influence on geomorphological thought and spawned the once highly influential field of denudation chronology.
The foundations of historical geomorphology

Traditionally, historical geomorphologists strove to work out landscape history by mapping morphological (form) and sedimentary features. Their golden rule was the dictum that the present is the key to the past. This was a warrant to assume that the effects of geomorphic processes seen in action today may be legitimately used to infer the causes of assumed landscape changes in the past. Before reliable dating techniques were available,
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INTRODUCING LANDFORMS AND LANDSCAPES
Figure 1.6 William Morris Daviss idealized geographical cycle in which a landscape evolves through life-stages to produce a peneplain. (a) Youth: a few consequent streams (p. 214), V-shaped valley crosssections, limited floodplain formation, large areas of poorly drained terrain between streams with lakes and marshes, waterfalls and rapids common where streams cross more resistant beds, stream divides broad and ill-defined, some meanders on the original surface. (b) Maturity: well-integrated drainage system, some streams exploiting lines of weak rocks, master streams have attained grade (p. 211), waterfalls, rapids, lakes, and marshes largely eliminated, floodplains common on valley floors and bearing meandering rivers, valley no wider than the width of meander belts, relief (difference in elevation between highest and lowest points) is at a maximum, hillslopes and valley sides dominate the landscape. (c) Old age: trunk streams more important again, very broad and gently sloping valleys, floodplains extensive and carrying rivers with broadly meandering courses, valleys much wider than the width of meander belts, areas between streams reduced in height and stream divides not so sharp as in the maturity stage, lakes, swamps, and marshes lie on the floodplains, mass-wasting dominates fluvial processes, stream adjustments to rock types now vague, extensive areas lie at or near the base level of erosion. Source: Adapted from Holmes (1965, 473)

Historical Geomorphology

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WHAT IS GEOMORPHOLOGY?

William Morris Davis

The foundations of historical geomorphology

INTRODUCING LANDFORMS AND LANDSCAPES

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