Basin and Tectonic Constraints on Landforms

Abstract

An essentially geographical analysis of landforms, in which the explanation of variation from place to place is the central issue, must be soundly grounded on stratigraphy and tectonics. This much was made clear by our introductory example of the Bungle Bungle Range which demonstrated major changes in morphology with changes in lithology, and which also illustrated the great morphological contrasts that can be found between adjacent, but markedly different tectonic settings. Here again our prime concern is with “the spacing of phenomena over the earth expresses the general geographic problem of distribution, which leads us to ask about the meaning of the presence or absence, massing or thinning of things or groups of things variable as to areal extension” (Sauer 1941). The phenomena are geological, but the purpose is, in this sense, geographical. That is to say we are concerned with variability of landforms, not with stratigraphy and tectonics per se. Furthermore, the general geomorphological effects of various types of deformation of a wide range of rocks has been described by Twidale (1971), Tricart (1974) and Louis and Fischer (1979), and the relationship of geomorphology to modern tectonic theory has been outlined by Ollier (1981). Rather than again reviewing these matters in detail here, we concentrate instead on topics which have received little attention in recent monographs.