According to accepted usage, landforms that result from crustal movements are described as tectonic. Though many geologists have used “structural” in the same sense, a convention among geomorphologists restricts “structural” to the description of forms that have been developed by erosion under the control of the internal structure of the terrain.
Since sculpture by erosion must be preceded by upheaval, all mountains and mountain ranges except volcanoes (mountains of accumulation) might strictly be included in the tectonic category. This would then include “fold” mountains—those composed internally of folded rocks—even if the upheaval that has led to the sculpture by erosion of present-day mountains could be dated as contemporaneous with the folding of their rocks. In few such ranges, if any, however, can this be assumed to be the case. The welt of folded strata may have remained low-lying during, and for a long time after, its folding, or if it was simultaneously upheaved this upheaval...
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In parts of southern New Zealand, including Central Otago, as interpreted by some authors, this surface was retouched and beveled by erosion after preliminary block-forming movements had taken place and the cover had been stripped from upraised parts of the terrain. Renewed and stronger movements of dislocation followed, and the younger erosion plain thus forms some block surfaces. According to W. N. Benson, this is a peneplain of late Miocene age; according to B. L. Wood, it is an early to middle Pleistocene surface of cryoplanation.
References
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Te Punga, M. T., 1957, Live anticlines in western Wellington, New Zealand J. Sci. Technol., B38, 433–446.
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Scotton, C.A. (1968). Tectonic landscapes . In: Geomorphology. Encyclopedia of Earth Science. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-31060-6_369
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-31060-6_369
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