Every year millions of people visit Yosemite Valley, and they encounter stunning scenery that can overwhelm their senses. This experience is as true today as it was when the valley was discovered. The first recorded discovery of Yosemite Valley by western civilization was made by Major James D. Savage’s Mariposa Battalion, which, pursuing “hostile Indians” up the Merced River drainage, entered the valley on March 27, 1851. Early rumors about the valley had not prepared the men for the overpowering view now before them (Figure 1). <...>

This book discusses new insights concerning the influence of the climate upon the earth’s relief, in particular upon the continents. It has been found that this climatic, this exogenic influence is much stronger than any endogenous influence. Endogenous forces, as any geologic map will show, are distributed randomly over the entire earth, while the exogenic influence of climate follows strict rules in its distribution from the pole to the equator, both today as in the past. Their distribution and intensity make climatic influences the best basis upon which to found a system of geomorphology, such as the one presented here.

This book is intended primarily for the student of African geomorphology. Its originality lies in the fact that, with the exception of certain glacial and periglacial features, the examples are drawn entirely from Africa. More than ten years have passed since I first discovered to my amazement that throughout large parts of Africa most physical geography textbooks and much teaching involved the use of European or North American examples. Now, while there is an enormous volume of literature on African geomorphology in various academic journals and research bulletins, these are frequently inaccessible to students or else are published in foreign languages. It is my belief, therefore, that there has long been a need in schools and colleges for a basic text utilising this vast fund of knowledge. I hope that, in part, the present book may satisfy this need.

'The Encyclopedia of Geomorphology" appears as the first alphabetic, encyclopedic treatment of the science of Geomorphology—the analytic physiography of the Earth's surface. It is numbered, for convenience in cross-referencing, as Volume III of the "Encyclopedia of Earth Sciences'* series that Reinhold is publishing under the present editor. At this time eight volumes either have appeared or are in preparation. Each volume is completely autonomous and runs from A to Z within its own subdisciplines.

Problems of slope stability, instability, and the associated mass movement processes of slope failure, represent research themes common to both geotechnical engineers and geomorphologists, although their perspectives clearly differ. While the engineering concern is generally site specific and limited by project design-life considerations to time periods of less than 100 years, for the geomorphologist longer term slope stability and slope evolution, involving a mixture of slope processes operating over tens of thousands of years, constitute a major area of enquiry (e.g. Kirkby, 1984).

Это пособие является вторым изданием, дополненным и содержащим изменения. В пособии приводится геолого-геоморфологический очерк и описаны современные физико-геологические процессы территории Чашниковской впадины и ее обрамления. Существенное внимание уделено методическим аспектам проведения геолого-геоморфологической практики.
Данное методическое руководство в первую очередь предназначено для студентов 1 курса факультета почвоведения МГУ имени М.В. Ломоносова, а также может быть полезно для студентов, преподавателей естественных факультетов как МГУ, так и других вузов, а также школьников, интересующихся геологией Подмосковья.
Авторы выражают благодарность своим коллегам – преподавателям, которые в течение многих лет проводили эту практику и принимали участие в написании и оформлении первого издания пособия.

When on November 21, 1783 the Marquis d’Arlandes and Pilatre de Rosier made a half hour voyage in their Montgolfier balloon near Paris and thus became the first aeronauts, few would have guessed that this achievement was not only the humble beginning of man’s conquest of aerospace but triggered off also a sequence of events which ultimately provided a powerful tool for the study of landforms and terrain conditions of all sorts. The potentials of aerospace observations have evolved with the technological progress of data recording and processing systems and of tire skyborne vehicles involved (Dolfuss, 1972; Quick, 1964; Parry, 1972).

The major geomorphological divisions of the United States, the Rocky Mountain ranges, the Great Plains and the Appalachian ranges, do not have a major influence on coastal features. The Pacific coast follows the alignment of the Coast Ranges on the western side of the Rocky Mountains, the Great Plains run southward to the lowlying coast of the Gulf of Mexico, and the Appalachians extend north-eastward to the coast of Maine. Useful background is provided by Shepard and Wanless (1971), Sherman (2005), Thornbury (1965) and Graf (1987). <...>

The term terrain evaluation has been adopted following the precedent of previous research carried out under the auspices of the Military Engineering Experimental Establishment (Beckett and Webster, 1969).
It has developed in response to the need for an understanding of terrain by an increasing variety of disciplines concerned with its practical uses. These are both scientific, such as geology, hydrology, geography, botany, zoology, ecology, pedology and meteorology; and applied, such as agriculture, forestry, civil and military engineering, and urban and recreational landscape design. This range of interest makes it important to be especially careful about the terms employed. <...>