These aren’t particularly common in modern Wyoming, as you might imagine. In fact, there are some fossil groundwater-derived landforms in ancient rock formations exposed in places in the state. What are these landforms? What do they look like? How do they form?
pp. 58–60. Groundwater. This section describes how groundwater behaves, so that later how it shapes the land can be explained.
p. 60. Work of Groundwater. This depends principally on a chemical process, the equation for which (in words) is near the bottom of the page. The equation is in the direction of dissolution, or erosion: the equation in reverse describes the process of precipitation, or deposition.
pp. 61–65. Landforms of Erosion. These landforms are so distinctive that they have the name karst topography.
pp. 65–67. Landforms of Deposition. Some of these structures occur below the surface, in caves, but some can be see at the surface. These landforms are typically small-scale.
These processes can be gradual, or sudden and cataclysmic, as the story introducing the chapter shows.
pp. 70–77. Kinds of Landslides and Related Landforms. Figure 7-3 classifies land movements by three independent variables: moisture content (vertical axis), particle size (horizontal axis), and speed (front-to-back). The rest of this section describes these in detail, and explains what the resulting landforms look like.
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Copyright © 2008, Richard Barrans
Revised: 23 August 2009. Maintained by Richard Barrans.
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