Some recently developed landforms: climatic implications.

Abstract

Many landforms are geologically youthful. Most, though by no means all, are comparatively minor but several, like gullies, are widely distributed. Some are the work of processes that have been active over several centuries or a few millennia. Some may have formed under the influence of a single set of climatically induced processes, but others are genetically more complex. Other recent landforms represent the culmination of processes that have long been active but which until recently had no surface expression. Yet others result from meteorological events acting on land surfaces rendered vulnerable by separate, in some instances clearly non-climatic, events. Even those forms which are climatically triggered are genetically complex and many are related to meteorological episodes rather than secular climatically induced processes. The climatic interpretation of landforms is as complex in the short term as it is in the long.