Landform: – Landform and their Evolution

Soil development is the major way in which soil changes with time, but there are other changes that can take place over time. Erosion, forest clearing, and forest succession would be some examples of other ways in which soil could change over time.

These processes would all cause a depletion in the top layer unless the newly formed layers from erosion or clear cutting had a high nutrient or mineral content.

In simple words, small to medium tracts or parcels of the earth’s surface are called landforms. Each landform has its own physical shape, size, materials and is a result of the action of certain geomorphic processes and agent

Several related landforms together make up landscapes, (large tracts of earth’s surface)

Geomorphic agents are capable of erosion and deposition, two sets — I-erosional or destructional and 2- depositional or constructional — of landforms are produced by them.

Varieties of landforms develop by the action of each of the geomorphic agents depending upon especially the type and structure i.e. folds, faults, joints, fractures, hardness and softness, permeability and impermeability, etc.

There are some other independent controls like

• stability of sea level
• tectonic stability of landmasses
• climate, which influence the evolution of landforms.

Any disturbance in any of these three controlling factors can upset the systematic and sequential stages in the development and evolution of landforms