Geomorphology Fundamentals

Name: Geomorphology Fundamentals
Rating: 3.0 (5 reviews)

geomrphology and tectonics

Created byJohn Martin

Last updated 2/2025

English

English [Auto],

What you'll learn

Geomorphology
Channel morphometry
Stages of a channel
Denudation process

Course content

1 section • 15 lectures • 18h 35m total length

Mass movements & Types1:14:36
geomorphology fundamentals introduce mass movements, including rock falls, slides, flows, and slumps, and explain gravity, moisture, vegetation, and earthquakes or mining and bombing vibrations as triggers of downslope movement.
Mass movements-II41:55
Explore mass movements in geomorphology fundamentals, including falls, rockfalls, avalanches, slumps, translational and rotational slides, earth and debris flows, and lahars, with gravity, moisture, and permafrost controls.
Geomorphology Introduction1:27:48
Explore how internal and external forces shape the earth's surface, including weathering, erosion, transportation, and deposition, with a focus on endogenic and exogenic processes, mass movements, and landscape evolution models.
Soil formation & Classification1:54:42
Explore soil formation and classification through chemical weathering processes—dissolution, ion exchange, hydrolysis, hydration, and oxidation—driving horizon development and zone of leaching.
Fluvial features-11:02:22
Explore how rivers shape landscapes through erosion, transport, and deposition, detailing processes like attrition, abrasion, corrosion, and hydraulic action, and examining fluvial velocity and sediment size relationships.
Fluvial features-21:10:33
Explore how river profiles drive fluvial landscape evolution, from upstream gradients to downstream discharge, including the Bradshaw model, erosion, transport, and features like meanders, waterfalls, and rejuvenation.
Fluvial features-357:42
Glacial Features-11:26:21
Geomorphology fundamentals: glacial erosion and depositional features are explored, including cirques, aretes, U-shaped valleys, fjords, ribbon and finger lakes, and pyramidal peaks.
Glacial Features-21:24:02
Explore how glaciers erode and deposit to form drumlines, moraines, outwash plains, kettle lakes, and glacial fluvial sediments.
Aeolian featues-11:00:44
Explore wind erosion processes shaping deserts, including deflation, abrasion, and attrition, and the resulting landforms such as yardangs, desert pavements, dunes, and desert varnish.
Aeolian featues-21:16:54
Explain aeolian features formed by wind erosion, including desert landforms such as mushroom rocks, earth pillars, dunes (crescent and parabolic), desert pavements, and playa lake or salina.
Karst Topography1:34:32
Explore karst topography and groundwater processes that dissolve limestone, forming cave features such as stalactites, stalagmites, sinkholes, uvula, and underground drainage.
Basin parameters-11:08:16
Explore basin morphometrics through morphometric analysis, detailing 21 parameters such as stream order, basin relief, drainage density, perimeter, and compactness to study basin evolution and tectonics.
Basin parameters-253:53
Explore basin parameters, focusing on the form factor (area divided by base length squared) and related metrics like circulatory and elongation ratios, drainage density, and compactness, with practical examples.
Coastal landforms1:20:40
Explore coastal erosion and depositional processes shaping shorelines, from arches, sea stacks, blowholes, and stumps to bays, lagoons, spits, and barrier islands, along with coastal emergence and submergence.

Requirements

Basics of science

Description

Geomorphology is the scientific study of landforms, their processes, and the sediments shaping the Earth's surface—and, in some cases, the surfaces of other planets. It involves analyzing landscapes to understand how natural forces such as wind, water, and ice shape and transform the terrain. Landforms result from erosion and deposition, where rock and sediment are worn away, transported, and redeposited. Various climatic environments produce distinct landform patterns; for instance, the sand dunes of deserts contrast sharply with the glacial and periglacial features of polar and sub-polar regions. By mapping these landforms, geomorphologists gain insights into their formation and distribution.

Earth-surface processes continue to shape landscapes today, though often at imperceptibly slow rates. However, sudden events like landslides, floods, and other geological hazards—including volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, and tsunamis—can cause rapid and dramatic changes, sometimes posing risks to human populations. Over recent decades, advancements in remote sensing technologies and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) have significantly enhanced geomorphologists’ ability to analyze and interpret landform distributions globally.

Geomorphologists serve as "landscape detectives," piecing together the historical development of terrains. Many regions, such as Britain and Ireland, have undergone multiple glaciations over tens of thousands of years, leaving behind distinctive features like steep-sided valleys in the Lake District and drumlin fields in central Ireland. Scientists can reconstruct past climate conditions and environmental changes by studying landforms, sediments, and preserved organic materials—including pollen, beetles, diatoms, and macrofossils found in lake deposits and peat.

Geomorphology is a highly interdisciplinary field, with researchers specializing in diverse areas such as aeolian (desert) geomorphology, glacial and periglacial geomorphology, volcanic and tectonic geomorphology, and even planetary geomorphology. Many studies integrate knowledge from multiple disciplines, including ecology, geology, civil engineering, hydrology, and soil science, to offer a comprehensive understanding of how landscapes evolve and interact with natural and human influences.

Who this course is for:

All Geoscience enthusiasts