Landforms are categorized by characteristic physical attributes such as their creating process, shape, elevation, slope, orientation, rock exposure, and soil type.
The Great Basin Desert is part of the Great Basin between the Sierra Nevada and the Wasatch Range. The desert is a geographical region that largely overlaps the Great Basin shrub steppe defined by the World Wildlife Fund, and the Central Basin and Range ecoregion defined by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and United States Geological Survey. It is a temperate desert with hot, dry summers and snowy winters. The desert spans large portions of Nevada and Utah, and extends into eastern California. The desert is one of the four biologically defined deserts in North America, in addition to the Mojave, Sonoran, and Chihuahuan Deserts.
Lake Missoula was a prehistoric proglacial lake in western Montana that existed periodically at the end of the last ice age between 15,000 and 13,000 years ago. The lake measured about 7,770 square kilometres (3,000 sq mi) and contained about 2,100 cubic kilometres (500 cu mi) of water, half the volume of Lake Michigan.
In geology and physical geography, a plateau, also called a high plain or a tableland, is an area of a highland consisting of flat terrain that is raised sharply above the surrounding area on at least one side. Often one or more sides have deep hills or escarpments. Plateaus can be formed by a number of processes, including upwelling of volcanic magma, extrusion of lava, and erosion by water and glaciers. Plateaus are classified according to their surrounding environment as intermontane, piedmont, or continental. A few plateaus may have a small flat top while others have wider ones.
Turnagain Arm is a waterway into the northwestern part of the Gulf of Alaska. It is one of two narrow branches at the north end of Cook Inlet, the other being Knik Arm. Turnagain is subject to climate extremes and large tide ranges.
The Desert of Hami is a section of the Gobi Desert in Xinjiang, China that occupies the space between the Tian Shan system on the north and the Nan-shan Mountains on the south, and is connected on the west with the Desert of Lop.
Glacial landforms are landforms created by the action of glaciers. Most of today's glacial landforms were created by the movement of large ice sheets during the Quaternary glaciations. Some areas, like Fennoscandia and the southern Andes, have extensive occurrences of glacial landforms; other areas, such as the Sahara, display rare and very old fossil glacial landforms.
The Grand Mesa is a large mesa in western Colorado in the United States. It is the largest flat-topped mountain in the world. It has an area of about 500 square miles (1,300 km2) and stretches for about 40 miles (60 km) east of Grand Junction between the Colorado River and the Gunnison River, its tributary to the south. The north side of the mesa is drained largely by Plateau Creek, a smaller tributary of the Colorado. The west side is drained largely by Kannah Creek, which is received to the west by the lower Gunnison River. The mesa rises about 6,000 feet (1,800 m) above the surrounding river valleys, including the Grand Valley to the west, reaching an elevation of about 11,000 feet (3,400 m). Much of the mesa is within Grand Mesa National Forest. Over 300 lakes, including many reservoirs created and used for drinking and irrigation water, are scattered along the top of the formation. The Grand Mesa is flat in some areas, but quite rugged in others.
Lake Duluth was a proglacial lake that formed in the Lake Superior drainage basin as the Laurentide Ice Sheet retreated. The oldest existing shorelines were formed after retreat from the Greatlakean advance, sometime around 11,000 years B.P. Lake Duluth formed at the western end of the Lake Superior basin. Lake Duluth overflowed south through outlets in Minnesota and Wisconsin at an elevation of around 331 m above sea level.
Manhattan is an unincorporated town in Nye County, Nevada, located at the end of Nevada State Route 377, about 50 miles (80 km) north of Tonopah, the county seat.
Orography of Azerbaijan refers to the rocky, mountainous and elevated terrains in Azerbaijan. The tectonic structure is typical for the orography of the country. The main morphostructural units are the Greater Caucasus, the Lesser Caucasus, the Gusar plane, the Samur-Devechi lowland, the Kur intermountain trough, the Karabagh volcanic highland, the near and middle Araz Ridges and Talysh Mountains.
Level Mountain is a large volcanic complex in the Northern Interior of British Columbia, Canada. It is located 50 kilometres north-northwest of Telegraph Creek and 60 kilometres west of Dease Lake on the Nahlin Plateau. With a maximum elevation of 2,164 metres, it is the second-highest of four large complexes in an extensive north–south trending volcanic region. Much of the mountain is gently-sloping; when measured from its base, Level Mountain is about 1,100 metres tall, slightly taller than its neighbour to the northwest, Heart Peaks. The lower, broader half of Level Mountain consists of a shield-like structure while its upper half has a more steep, jagged profile. Its broad summit is dominated by the Level Mountain Range, a small mountain range with prominent peaks cut by deep valleys. These valleys serve as a radial drainage for several small streams that flow from the mountain. Meszah Peak is the only named peak in the Level Mountain Range.
Cape Town lies at the south-western corner of the continent of Africa. It is bounded to the south and west by the Atlantic Ocean, and to the north and east by various other municipalities in the Western Cape province of South Africa.
This glossary of geography terms is a list of definitions of terms and concepts used in geography and related fields, including Earth science, oceanography, cartography, and human geography, as well as those describing spatial dimension, topographical features, natural resources, and the collection, analysis, and visualization of geographic data. It is split across two articles:
Ear Mountain (Inupiaq: Iŋiġagik) is an isolated mountain located on the Seward Peninsula in the U.S. state of Alaska. The mountain, with an elevation of 2,329 feet (710 m), has a belt of Cretaceous tin "granites." Though the mountain is located in an area long known for its tin deposits, it was only in 1953 and 1954 during a survey by the US Bureau of Mines that tin deposits were confirmed to be on Ear Mountain.
Lake Whittlesey was a proglacial lake that was an ancestor of present-day Lake Erie. It formed about 14,000 years ago. As the Erie Lobe of the Wisconsin Glacier retreated at the end of the last ice age, it left melt-water in a previously-existing depression area that was the valley of an eastward-flowing river known as the Erigan River that probably emptied into the Atlantic Ocean following the route of today's Saint Lawrence River. The lake stood at 735 feet (224 m) to 740 feet (230 m) above sea level. The remanent beach is not horizontal as there is a ‘hinge line’ southwest of a line from Ashtabula, Ohio, through the middle part of Lake St. Clair. The hinge line is where the horizontal beaches of the lake have been warped upwards towards the north by the isostatic rebound as the weight of the ice sheet was removed from the land. The rise is 60 feet (18 m) north into Michigan and the Ubly outlet. The current altitude of the outlet is 800 feet (240 m) above sea level. Where the outlet entered the Second Lake Saginaw at Cass City the elevation is 740 feet (230 m) above sea level. The Lake Whittlesey beach called the Belmore Beach and is a gravel ridge 10 feet (3.0 m) to 15 feet (4.6 m) high and one-eighth mile wide. Lake Whittlesey was maintained at the level of the Ubly outlet only until the ice melted back on the "Thumb" far enough to open a lower outlet. This ice recession went far enough to allow the lake to drop about 20 feet (6.1 m) below the lowest of the Arkona beaches to Lake Warren levels.
During the Vashon Glaciation a series of lakes formed along the southern margin of the Cordilleran Ice Cap. In the Hood Canal depression, two significant lake stages existed, Lake Skokomish and Lake Hood. Early Lake Skokomish’s surface was at 350 ft (110 m) above sea level, draining across the divide at Shelton, Washington into early Glacial Lake Russell. As the glacier receded northward, this freshwater lake grew in size, until the ice was north of the Clifton channel. With the opening of the Clifton channel, the water dropped to 160 m (520 ft) above sea level. This longer and lower level lake is referred to as Lake Hood. The glacier continued to recede northward until it reached the Poulsbo channel. Here, the water level equalized to Glacial Lake Russell no longer having a separate identify.
Lake Circle was a glacial lake that formed during the late Pleistocene epoch along the Redwater River in eastern Montana. After the Laurentide Ice Sheet retreated, glacial ice melt accumulated in the basin surrounded by the ridges of the preglacial valley and the retreating glacier. Southwest of Nickwall are the remnants of a broad abandoned valley with long side slopes. The valley runs north from Redwater Creek to the Missouri River. The bottom is poorly drained and about 1 mile (1.6 km) in width. It lies 2,015 to 2,020 feet above the sea level and 40 to 50 feet above the Missouri River bottomland. The upland slopes are extensive, clear and flat. The valleys surrounding it are dissected with V-shaped coulees. The difference between the Redwater valley and those around it reflect stream erosion vs. lake sedimentation. The drift in the valleys, appears to be as left by the glacier in the previously created valleys. Using the dating of lake deposits near Great Falls, Montana, the Havre lobe of the Laurentide Ice Sheet dammed the ancestral Missouri River during the late Wisconsin Glacial Period.
Matchless Mountain is a high mountain summit in the Elk Mountains range of the Rocky Mountains of North America. The 12,389-foot (3,776 m) mountain is located in Gunnison National Forest, 18.3 miles (29.4 km) east-southeast of the Town of Crested Butte in Gunnison County, Colorado, United States.
The geology of California is highly complex, with numerous mountain ranges, substantial faulting and tectonic activity, rich natural resources and a history of both ancient and comparatively recent intense geological activity. The area formed as a series of small island arcs, deep-ocean sediments and mafic oceanic crust accreted to the western edge of North America, producing a series of deep basins and high mountain ranges.
