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Bight – Shallowly concave bend or curve in a coastline, river, or other geographical feature; Blowhole – Hole at the top of a sea-cave which allows waves to force water or spray out of the hole; Channel – Narrow body of water; Cape – Large headland extending into a body of water, usually the sea
Landforms are categorized by characteristic physical attributes such as elevation, slope, orientation, structure stratification, rock exposure, and soil type.Gross physical features or landforms include intuitive elements such as berms, mounds, hills, ridges, cliffs, valleys, rivers, peninsulas, volcanoes, and numerous other structural and size-scaled (e.g. ponds vs. lakes, hills vs. mountains ...
Geologic processes include the uplift of mountain ranges, the growth of volcanoes, isostatic changes in land surface elevation (sometimes in response to surface processes), and the formation of deep sedimentary basins where the surface of the Earth drops and is filled with material eroded from other parts of the landscape.
The most important types of volcanic mountain are composite cones or stratovolcanoes and shield volcanoes. [10] [11] A shield volcano has a gently sloping cone because of the low viscosity of the emitted material, primarily basalt. Mauna Loa is the classic example, with a slope of 4°-6°.
Former lakes are a common feature of the Basin and Range area of southwestern North America. [60] A shrunken lake is a paleolake that still exists but has considerably decreased in size over geological time. An example of a shrunken lake is Lake Agassiz, which once covered much of central North America
Moraine-dammed lakes occur when glacial debris dam a stream (or snow runoff). Jackson Lake and Jenny Lake in Grand Teton National Park are examples of moraine-dammed lakes, though Jackson Lake is enhanced by a man-made dam. Kettle lake: Depression, formed by a block of ice separated from the main glacier, in which the lake forms
From left to right: Lake Upemba, Lake Mweru, Lake Tanganyika (largest), and Lake Rukwa. A rift valley near Quilotoa, Ecuador. The Ottawa-Bonnechere Graben Þingvallavatn. A rift valley is a linear shaped lowland between several highlands or mountain ranges produced by the action of a geologic rift.
The geology of the Rocky Mountains is that of a discontinuous series of mountain ranges with distinct geological origins. Collectively these make up the Rocky Mountains , a mountain system that stretches from Northern British Columbia through central New Mexico and which is part of the great mountain system known as the North American Cordillera .