Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Part I The Tropical Environment
- Part II Process geomorphology in the tropics
- 5 Weathering in the tropics
- 6 Slopes: forms and processes
- 7 Rivers in the tropics
- 8 Alluvial valleys
- 9 Large rivers in the tropics
- 10 The tropical coasts
- 11 Deltas in the tropics
- 12 The arid tropics
- 13 Tropical highlands
- 14 Volcanic landforms
- 15 Tropical karst
- 16 Quaternary in the tropics
- Part III Anthropogenic changes
- References
- Index
- Plate section
6 - Slopes: forms and processes
from Part II - Process geomorphology in the tropics
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 February 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Part I The Tropical Environment
- Part II Process geomorphology in the tropics
- 5 Weathering in the tropics
- 6 Slopes: forms and processes
- 7 Rivers in the tropics
- 8 Alluvial valleys
- 9 Large rivers in the tropics
- 10 The tropical coasts
- 11 Deltas in the tropics
- 12 The arid tropics
- 13 Tropical highlands
- 14 Volcanic landforms
- 15 Tropical karst
- 16 Quaternary in the tropics
- Part III Anthropogenic changes
- References
- Index
- Plate section
Summary
I have climbed and ruminated upon too many great bornhardts, in company with the leopard and the baboon, to believe that these most powerful of landforms, glorious in the sun and rain alike, ever originated foetally within the dark body of the earth. The leopard and the baboon don't believe so either.
L. C. KingProperties of a slope
The word slope indicates both (1) an inclined unit on the surface of the Earth and (2) the measured level of such inclination. The surface of the Earth is a combination of slopes of various kinds. This assemblage of slopes mostly consists of hillcrests, valleyside slopes and slopes along streams orthogonal to the termination of valleyside slopes. As Dunne and Leopold (1978) have described it, hillslopes cover virtually the entire landscape. A slope is probably visualised best as a profile drawn from the hillcrest to the valley bottom. Both water and surficial sediment are transported under gravity downslope. Sediment commonly takes several moves to traverse the entire length of a hillslope, and between such moves it rests at progressively downslope locations. The surface of a slope therefore reflects this pattern of storage and transfer of material.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Tropical Geomorphology , pp. 82 - 100Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2011