NCERT Summary: Land Forms- 1 | Geography for UPSC CSE PDF Download

After weathering processes have had their actions on the earth materials making up the surface of the earth, the geomorphic agents like running water, ground water, wind, glaciers, waves perform erosion. Erosion causes changes on the surface of the earth. Deposition follows erosion and because of deposition too, changes occur on the surface of the earth.

A landmass passes through stages of development somewhat comparable to the stages of life- youth, mature and old age.

Running Water
In humid regions, which receive heavy rainfall running water is considered the most important of the geomorphic agents in bringing about the degradation of the land surface. There are two components of running water. One is overland flow in general land surface as a sheet. Another is linear flow as streams and rivers in valleys. Most of the erosional landforms made by running water are associated with vigorous and youthful rivers flowing along gradients. With time, stream channels over steep gradients turn gentler due to continued erosion, and as a consequence, lose their velocity, facilitating active deposition.

In the early stages, down-cutting dominates during which irregularities such as waterfalls and cascades will be removed. In the middle stages, streams cut their beds slower, and lateral erosion of valley sides becomes severe. Gradually, the valley sides are reduced to lower and lower slopes. The divides between drainage basins are likewise lowered until they are almost completely flattened leaving finally, a lowland of faint relief with some low resistant remnants called monad nocks standing out here and there. This type of plain forming as a result of stream erosion is called a peneplain (an almost plain). The characteristics of each of the stages of landscapes developing in running water regimes may be summarized as follows:

Youth
Streams are few during this stage with poor integration and flow over original slopes showing shallow V-shaped valleys with no floodplains or with very narrow floodplains along trunk streams. Streams divides are broad and flat with marshes, swamp and lakes. Meanders if present develop over these broad upland surfaces. These meanders may eventually entrench themselves into the uplands. Waterfalls and rapids may exist where local hard rock bodies are exposed.

Mature
During this stage streams are plenty with good integration. The valleys are still V-shaped but deep; trunk streams are broad  enough to have wider floodplains within which streams may flow in meanders confined within the valley. The flat and broad inter stream areas and swamps and marshes of youth disappear and the stream divides turn sharp. Waterfalls and rapids disappear.

Old
Smaller tributaries during old age are few with gentle gradients. Streams meander freely over vast floodplains showing natural levees, oxbow lakes, etc. Divides are broad and flat with lakes, swamps and marshes. Most of the landscape is at or slightly above sea level.

Vallyes
Valleys start as small and narrow rills; the rills will gradually develop into long and wide gullies; the gullies will further deepen, widen and lengthen to give rise to valleys. Depending upon dimensions and shape, many types of valleys like V-shaped valley, gorge, canyon, etc. can be recognized. A gorge is a deep valley with very steep to straight sides and a canyon is characterized by steep step-like side slopes and may be as deep as a gorge. A gorge is almost equal in width at its top as well as its bottom. In contrast, a canyon is wider at its top than at its bottom. In fact, a canyon is a variant of gorge. Valley types depend upon the type and structure of rocks in which they form. For example, canyons commonly form in horizontal bedded sedimentary rocks and gorges form in hard rocks.

Potholes and Pluge Pools
Over the rocky beds of hill-streams more or less circular depressions called potholes form because of stream erosion aided by the abrasion of rock fragments. Such large and deep holes at the base of waterfalls are called plunge pools. These pools also help in the deepening of valleys. Waterfalls are also transitory like any other landform and will recede gradually and bring the floor of the valley above waterfalls to the level below.

Incised or Entrenched Meanders
But very deep and wide meanders found cut in hard rocks. Such meanders are called incised or entrenched meanders.

River Terraces
River terraces are surfaces marking old valley floor or floodplain levels. River terraces are basically products of erosion as they result due to vertical erosion by the stream into its own depositional floodplain.

Alluvial Fans
Alluvial fans are formed when streams flowing from higher levels break into foot slope plains of low gradient. Alluvial fans in humid areas show normally low cones with gentle slope from head to toe and they appear as high cones with steep slope in arid and semi-arid climates.

Deltas
Deltas are like alluvial fans but develop at a different location. The load carried by the rivers is dumped and spread into the sea. It this load is not carried away far into the sea or distributed along the coast, it spreads and accumulates as a low cone.

Floodplains, Natural Levees and Point Bars
Floodplain is a major landform of river deposition. The flood plains in a delta are called delta plains.

Natural levees are found along the  banks of large rivers. They are low, linear and parallel ridges of coarse deposits along the banks of rivers, quite often cut into individual mounds. During flooding as the water spills over the bank, the velocity of the water comes down and large sized and high specific gravity materials get dumped in the immediate vicinity of the bank as ridges. They are nearer the banks and slope gently away from the river. The levee deposits are coarser than the deposits spread by flood waters away from the river. When rivers shift laterally, a series of natural levees can form.

Point bars are also known as meander bars. They are found on the convex side of meanders of large rivers and are sediments deposited in a linear fashion by flowing waters along the bank.

Meanders
In large flood and delta plains, rivers rarely flow in straight courses. Loop-like channel patterns called meanders develop over flood and delta plains.

As meanders grow into deep loops, the same may get cut-off due to erosion at the inflection points and are left as ox-bow lakes.

Braided Channels: When rivers carry coarse material, there can be selective deposition of coarser materials causing formation of a central bar which diverts the flow towards the banks; and this flow increases lateral erosion on the banks. As the valley widens, the water column is reduced and more and more materials get deposited as islands and lateral bars developing a number of separate channels of water flow. Deposition and lateral erosion of banks are essential for the formation of braided pattern. Or, alternatively, when discharge is less and load is more in the valley, channel bars and islands of sand, gravel and pebbles develop on the floor of the channel and the water flow is divided into multiple threads. These thread-like streams of water rejoin and subdivide repeatedly to give a typical braided pattern.

Groundwater
Here the interest is not on groundwater as a resource. Our focus is on the work of groundwater in the erosion of landmasses and evolution of landforms. The surface water percolates well when the rocks are permeable, thinly bedded and highly jointed and cracked. After vertically going down to some depth, the water under the ground flows horizontally through the bedding planes, joints or through the materials themselves. It is this downward and horizontal movement of water which causes the rocks to erode. Physical or mechanical removal of materials by moving groundwater is insignificant in developing landforms. That is why; the results of the work of groundwater cannot be seen in all types of rocks. But in rocks like limestone or dolomites rich in calcium carbonate, the surface water as well as groundwater through the chemical process of solution and precipitation deposition develop varieties of landforms. These two processes of solution and precipitation are active in limestone’s or dolomites occurring either exclusively or inter-bedded with other rocks. Any limestone or dolomite region showing typical landforms produced by the action of groundwater through the processes of solution and deposition is called Karst topography after the typical topography developed in limestone rocks of Karst region in the Balkans adjacent to Adriatic sea. 

The karst topography is also characterized be erosional and depositional landforms. Indian subcontinent is full of example of glaciers. It can be seen in mountainous area of Uttaranchal, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu Kashmir. The source of Bhagirathi river is Gangotri glacier called ‘Gaumukh’. The source of Alakananda river is Alkapuri glacier. Where Alakhanda joins Bhagirathi at Devprayag it ows nomenclature as “The Ganga”.

Pools, Sinkholes, Lapies and Limestone Pavements
Small to medium sized round to subrounded shallow depressions called swallow holes form on the surface of limestone’s through solution. It might collapse leaving a large hole opening into a cave or a void below (collapse sinks). The term do line is sometimes used to refer the collapse sinks. Solution sinks are more common than collapse sinks. Quite often the surface run-off simply goes down swallow and sink holes and flow as underground streams and re-emerge at a distance downstream through a cave opening. When sink holes and do-lines join together because of slumping of materials along their margins or due to roof collapse of caves, long, narrow to wide tranches called valley sinks or Uvalas form. Gradually, most of the surface of the limestone is eaten away by these pits and trenches, leaving it extremely irregular with a maze of points, grooves and ridges or lapis. Especially, these ridges or lapis form due to differential solution activity along parallel to sub-parallel joints. The lapie field may eventually turn into somewhat smooth limestone pavements.

Caves: In areas where there are alternating beds of rocks (shales, sandstones, quartzite’s) with limestones or dolomites in between or in areas where limestone’s are dense, massive and occurring as thick beds, cave formation is prominent.

Stalactites, Stalagmites and Pillars: Stalactites hang as icicles of different diameters. Normally they are broad at their bases and taper towards the free ends showing up in variety of forms. Stalagmites rise up from the floor of the caves. In fact, stalagmites form due to dripping water from the surface or through the thin pipe, of the stalactite, immediately below it. Stalagmites may take the shape of a column, a disc, with either a smooth, rounded bulging end or a miniature crater like depression. The stalagmite and stalactites eventually fuse to give rise to columns and pillars of different diameters.

Glaciers
Masses of ice moving as sheets over the land (continental glacier or piedmont glacier if a vast sheet of ice is spread over the plains at the foot of mountains) or as linear flows down the slopes of mountains in broad trough-like valleys (mountain and valley glaciers) are called glaciers. The movement of glaciers is slow unlike water flow. The movement could be a few centimeters to a few meters a day or even less or more. Glaciers move basically because of the force of gravity.

We have many glaciers in our country moving down the slopes and valleys in Himalayas. Higher reaches of Uttaranchal, Himachal Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir, are places to see some of them. River Bhagirathi is basically fed by melt waters from under the snout (Gaumukh) of the  Gangotri glacier. In fact, Alkapuri glacier feeds waters to Alakananda river. Rivers Alkananda and Bhagirathi join to make river Ganga near Deoprayag.

Erosion by glaciers is tremendous because of friction caused by sheer weight of the ice. The material plucked from the land by glaciers (usually large-sized angular blocks and fragments) get dragged along the floors or sides of the valleys and cause great damage through abrasion and plucking. Glaciers can cause significant damage to even un-weathered rocks and can reduce high mountains into low hills and plains. 

As glaciers continue to move, debris gets removed, divides get lowered and eventually the slope is reduced to such an extent that glaciers will stop moving leaving only a mass of low hills and vast outwash plains along with other depositional features. The highest peak in the Alps, Matterhorn and the highest peak in the Himalayas, Everest are in fact horns formed through headword erosion of radiating cirques.

Erosional Landforms
Cirque: The cirques quite often are found at the heads of glacial valleys. The accumulated ice cuts these cirques while moving down the mountain tops. They are deep, long and wide troughs or basins with very steep concave to vertically dropping high walls at its head as well as sides. A lake of water can be seen quite often within the cirques after the glacier disappears. Such lakes are called cirque or tarn lakes. There can be two or more cirques one leading into another down below in a stepped sequence.

Horns and Serrated Ridges
Horns form through head ward erosion of the cirque walls. It three or more radiating glaciers cut head ward until their cirques meet, high, sharp pointed and steep sided peaks called horns form. The divides between cirque side walls or head walls get narrow because of progressive erosion and turn into serrated or saw- toothed ridges sometimes referred to as arêtes with very sharp crest and a zigzag outline.

Glacial Valleys/Troughs
Glaciated valleys are trough-like and U-shaped with broad floors and relatively smooth, and steep sides. The valleys may contain littered debris or debris shaped as moraines with swampy appearance. There may be lakes gouged out of rocky floor or formed by debris within the valleys. There can be hanging valleys at an elevation on one or both sides of the main glacial valleys are quite often truncated to give them an appearance like triangular facets. Very deep glacial troughs filled with sea water and making up shorelines (in high latitudes) are called fjords/fiords.

Depositional Landforms
The unasserted coarse and fine debris dropped by the melting glaciers is called glacial till.

Moraines: They are long ridges of deposits of glacial till. Terminal moraines are long ridges of debris deposited at the end (toe) of the glaciers. Lateral moraines form along the sides parallel to the glacial valleys. The moraine in the centre of the glacial valley flanked by lateral moraines is called medial moraine.

Eskers
When glaciers melt in summer, the water flows on the surface of the ice or seeps down along the margins or even moves through holes in the ice. These waters accumulate  beneath the glacier and flow like streams in a channel beneath the ice. Such streams flow over the ground (not in a valley cut in the ground) with ice forming its banks. Very coarse materials like boulders and blocks along with some minor fractions of rock debris carried into this stream settle in the valley of ice beneath the glacier and after the ice melts can be found as a sinuous ridge called esker.