What processes cause slopes in geography?

Question

I am doing my geography homework and it says 98% is caused by running water, I have thought of tectonic activity, meteors and slopes created by humans, can any geographers think of any more? Thanks a lot in advance

Answer 1

You seem to have a pretty good grasp of it already: most of it is either rivers or glaciers, and I can really only clarify what you've already said.

Meteors: yep, huge craters are cool.

Tectonic: happens in a few different ways. The most obvious is when 2 plates crash into each other, and ripple each other up, like the Himalayas. It can be slightly more subtle, with one lifting over the other one. Also, volcanoes can erupt and make mountains where there were none before, mainly with islands, but can happen on land as well.

Humans: a couple of mechanisms. Firstly, someone comes along and thinks to himself, 'I'd like a hill there' and then builds one. Secondly: as the result of mining, the middle of Australia is littered with enormous heaps of tailings. These have a fairly small effect in the grand scheme of things but it's worth mentioning.

Yeah, wind too, although it's a lot slower than water/ice.

Answer 2

There is a process called wind erosion, which simply blows soil away. It acts like water erosion on the landscape, carving hollows and channels, even in rock. The dust carried by the wind then forms dunes, some of which can be quite high, across the landscape downwind.

Then you can have glaciation, the action of ice on a landscape. A glacier is literally a river of ice, flowing from high cold regions down to lower altitudes. This river of ice, over time, can carve through rocks to form deep U-shaped valleys. Rocks and soil picked up by the glacier, form what are called terminal moraines, low hummocky hills, at the point where the glacier ice melts.

At the other end of the temperature scale you have volcanic activity which can produce whole mountain ranges of volcanic cone-shaped hills.

I hope this helps.

Answer 3

Hey John,
the previous answers all are correct but only in the sense that these processes cause the deposition of material, they do not create the actual slope. The slope , over time is created by the effect of gravity on the material. For example a pile of loose rock has a natural rill angle (or angle of repose) of around 37 degrees. Different material will have a different slope angle depending on its composition.
Man made slopes may be constructed with a different slope angle to suit design parameters, though over time the material will find its natural slope angle - leading to slope failures.
Hope this helps

Answer 4

Volcanoes, wind eg sand dunes, gravity eg scree slopes

Answer 5

geosyncline- the action of tectonic plates on the magma on which the surface of the earth is "floating

Answer 6

Wind.