Essential Geographical and Geomorphological Terms

Key Concepts in Geography and Geomorphology

• Altitude: In any system, this refers to the topographic height of a place above sea level.
• Archipelago: This means a group or set of islands that are scattered nearby in a sea.
• Badlands: A geomorphological phenomenon that develops in soils formed by inconsistent material, where there is no plant protection, and which alternates between long hot dry periods and heavy rains.
• Bay: A portion of the sea that enters the land, with smaller dimensions than those of a gulf, formed by the effect of sea erosion.
• Cape (Cabo): A portion of land extending into the sea; it is often located at the end of a bay.
• Campinas: Large clay areas characterized by soft modeling, with alternating ridges, hills, and valleys, formed by various levels of river terraces.
• Cordillera: A mountain chain with similar characteristics and considerable length.
• Folding Cordillera: These are large mountain ridges that emerged during the Alpine orogeny of the Tertiary period by the folding of sedimentary material deposited by the sea in the flanges of the sockets (intermediate ranges) or in trenches (Alpine ranges).
• Sedimentary Basin or Depression: A field located below the sea surface bounded by mountains.
• Equator (Ecuador): An imaginary circle of the terrestrial sphere perpendicular to the axis of the Earth. As a parallel of latitude, the Equator divides the globe into two equal halves: the Northern Hemisphere (Boreal) and the Southern Hemisphere (Austral).
• Erosion: The action and effects primarily caused by three agents—wind, water, and ice—which drag elements that stand out in relief, eventually changing its shape over time.
• Faults: The rupture of a surface into two or more blocks, dislocated by differential movements with vertical displacement. We call the lifted block a Horst and the sunken block a Graben.
• Geomorphology: The science that studies the origin and development of the Earth's crust relief.
• Glacier: The accumulation of ice at the headwaters of valleys. The depression where it accumulates is called a cirque.
• Valley Glacier: This is composed of the cirque and a tongue of ice flowing down along a preexisting valley. The rock fragments excavated by the ice drag along the valley, giving it a typical U-shape.