Essential Geological Terms and Landform Definitions

Geological Terms and Landform Definitions

• Cerro Witness: A remnant of a platform within a tabular relief.
• Tectonic Style: A set of characteristics defining a tectonic structure and the mechanisms causing its distortion.
• Glaciation: A climatic process where general planetary cooling leads to the expansion of ice over large land areas.
• Plateau: A flat or slightly sloping surface, intersected by valleys and located at a specific altitude above sea level.
• Orogeny: A set of geological processes, both external and internal, causing mountain formation and folding, closely linked to plate tectonics.
• Páramo: A substantially horizontal, undeveloped surface that is rocky or stony and poor in vegetation.
• Countryside: A lowland northern sub-plateau characterized by mild relief on soft materials such as loam and clay.
• Peneplain: A relief form occupying large areas of gently undulating surfaces with little elevation difference between valleys and watersheds, consisting of ancient, eroded materials.
• Raña: Coarse deposits consisting mainly of quartzite stones, ranging in glacis or pediments covering the base of mountain ranges.
• Appalachian Relief: Ancient folded chains transformed into peneplains by erosion, subsequently uplifted and re-eroded, where soft materials wear away to leave hard rock protruding.
• Karst Relief: A landscape evolved through the dissolution of limestone; characterized by narrow gorges, sinkholes, and water-soluble rock formations.
• Basement (Kicking): A mass of very old rocks formed in the Precambrian or Paleozoic eras, located beneath stratified sedimentary rock formations.
• Erosion: The action of wind, water, and ice in dragging elements across the relief, thereby changing its shape.
• Fold: The compression of geological layers into a wave-like shape, resulting from tectonic pressure on plastic rocks.
• Anticline: A fold with variable size and shape where the oldest layers are located at the core.
• Syncline: Large depressions often referred to as valleys.
• Fault: A fracture line and discontinuity between two rocky blocks, through which the blocks move vertically or horizontally.
• Glacis: A typical piedmont form rooted in a mountain slope that connects to a valley floor or depression.
• Motion: An area of gentle slopes and erosion generated on resistant crystalline rocks.