Repeating patterns in the relief and in the structure of land

Abstract

Relief Patterns in Landscapes CHARACTER PROFILES To the physiographer who has critically surveyed the relief forms of many districts with their manifold diversities in character of bedrock, in structure, and in physiographic history, there is much which may be read at the first glance. Perhaps first of all are noted those features of the landscape which disclose the stage in the geographic cycle through which the district is passing. There may be, further, distinguishing lines which reveal in one case the work of waves, in another of mountain glaciers or of a continental ice-sheet; again, it is a partial submergence of the land which is disclosed, or a moulding of the surface under arid conditions rather than the more familiar, if not more prevalent, denudational processes of a humid climate. In the more striking instances—with purer types—fault topography may be distinguished from fold topography (see figures 1 and 2 ), though . . .