We all know that one fourth of the earths surface is covered by land.

The portion which forms

land on earths surface is not the same everywhere. At some places the land may be too high, at
some places very low, some areas would be lush green and certain areas are dry and barren. Our
planet earth is a beautiful collaboration of various physical features. These different physical
features are called the various landforms on the surface of the earth. There are many different
types of landforms on the Earth. The various landforms came into existence due to natural
processes such as erosion, wind, rain, weather conditions such as ice, frost and chemical actions.
Many landforms are created by more than one of these processes. A group of landforms in one
area makes up a landscape. Some of them were formed over millions of years and others were
formed in a matter of hours. The formation of a mountain range, for example, would usually take
a few million years. Events like earthquakes and volcanic eruptions can 'wipe off' landforms, or
form new ones in a matter of hours. Examples of some natural landforms are mountains, oceans,
rivers, hills, volcanoes, valleys, desserts, waterfalls, caves and cliffs. These are geographical
features that control the ecosystem, climate, weather and the essence of life on earth. Natural
events and disasters such as earthquakes (the tectonic plates) and eruption of volcanoes created
the various shapes of the land that we see.
Definitions:
In simple terms, we say that any shape on the earths surface is known as a landform.
Landforms are natural features of the landscape, natural physical features of the earth's surface,
for example, valleys, plateaus, mountains, plains, hills, loess, or glaciers.
Types of landforms
The landforms that are found on the surface of the Earth can be grouped into 4 categories:
Structural landforms are created through plate tectonics.
Structural Landforms - landforms that are created by massive earth movements due to plate
tectonics. When the earth shifts, landforms such as fold mountains, volcanoes and rift valleys can
occur. Volcanoes are an example of a landform that can go on to produce other landforms, such
as craters, calderas and lava domes. This includes landforms with some of the following
geomorphic features: fold mountains, rift valleys, and volcanoes

Landforms can also occur through the process of weathering, which is the process by which
sediments and rocks are broken down into soil or grains such as sand. Limestone landforms and
periglacial landforms are two examples of weathering landforms.
Erosional landforms such as river valleys and coastal cliffs are formed when forces such as wind
and water wear away surfaces. Erosion often takes a significant amount of time, but its effects
are easily measured by examining geological evidence such as rock layers.
Depositional landforms are formed when minerals and other substances are deposited over time.
In some cases, these landforms become sedimentary rocks after the deposits are altered by forces
such as chemicals, heat and pressure. Examples of depositional landforms include deltas, flood
plains and beaches.
Types of landforms
There are many different types of landforms on the Earth. Some of them were formed over
millions of years and others were formed in a matter of hours. The formation of a mountain
range, for example, would usually take a few million years. Events like earthquakes and volcanic
eruptions can 'wipe off' landforms, or form new ones in a matter of hours. Examples of some
natural landforms are mountains, oceans, rivers, hills, volcanoes, valleys, desserts, waterfalls,
caves and cliffs. This chapter looks at the formation of some major types of landforms.
Mountains
A mountain is a raised part of the Earth's surface. Mountains can be formed in different ways that
involve internal (inside) or external (outside) natural forces. The movement of tectonic plates is
called plate tectonics. Plate tectonics is an internal natural force because it happens inside the
Earth. When tectonic plates collide, they raise the Earth's crust. As mentioned before, tectonic
plates move very slowly, so it takes many millions of years to build a mountain. Mountains can
also be formed by external natural forces like rain, wind and frost in the process of erosion.
Mountains with shapes that are sharp and jagged are called young mountains. Mountains that
have a smoother, more rounded look are called old mountains. The South American mountain
range, the Andes, is a young mountain range. Old mountains look smoother because they have
been shaped by natural weathering over a longer period of time. The Himalayan Mountains,
which are an older type of mountain, are still 'growing' due to plate tectonics.
If they are given enough time, usually millions of years, all mountains crumble. High, jagged
peaks become low, rounded hills. Eventually, mountains wear away, becoming soil and sand.
Valleys
A flat area of land between hills or mountains is called a valley. Valleys are usually formed by
river water. The speed at which a river deepens its valley depends on the speed of the flow of the
river water and the type of materials from which the river bed (the bottom of the river) is made.
Softer and lighter materials are moved by water faster than hard and heavy ones. That means that
a river bed made from soft sediments can be changed or deepened faster than a hard and rocky
one.
Oceans
An ocean is a large body of salty water that surrounds a large land mass. After studying different
rock, scientists have established that the first ocean on the Earth was formed about 4000 million
years ago. Even though early Earth did not have any water, it had the chemical elements that
make up a water molecule. Some scientists believe that the Earth's first rain was just cooled-
down volcanic steam. Rainwater started to collect in low-lying areas of the Earth's crust, forming
the first ocean. Another group of scientists believes that first water was 'delivered' on the Earth
by massive ice-bearing comets.
The formation of the first ocean was the starting point for the evolution of life on Earth. Oceans
made the Earth's climate milder and more suitable for life. An ancient ocean was the place where
the first oxygen-producing algae were formed. Today, more than two-thirds of the Earth's surface
is covered with water which is in constant motion. This motion of water currents plays a very
important role in shaping landforms.
Deserts
A desert is an area that receives very little or no rain through the year. Deserts usually form as a
result of climate change. Deserts have very dry air and lots of wind. Deserts can be hot or cold.
During the daytime the temperature in hot deserts is very high and at night it drops to a few
degrees. A cold desert is a desert that has snow in the winter. An example of a hot desert is the
Sahara desert. Sometimes people call Antarctica a frozen desert. It has not rained or snowed in
some places there for over 100 years. A cold desert never becomes warm enough for plants to
grow in it. Deserts cover about a fifth of the Earth's land surface.

Weathering vs erosion
Weathering and erosion are geological processes that act together to shape the surface of the
Earth. Lets describe them briefly.
Weathering is the process of decomposing, breaking up or changing the color of rocks.
Weathering may be caused by the action of water, air, chemicals, plants, or animals.Chemical
weathering involves chemical changes in the minerals of the rock, or on the surface of the rock,
that make the rock change its shape or color. Carbon dioxide, oxygen, water, and acids may all
cause chemical weathering. Mechanical weathering is the process of breaking a large rock into
smaller pieces without changing the minerals in the rock. Mechanical weathering may be caused
by frost, ice, plant roots, running water, or heat from the sun. Weathering is the decomposition of
rocks, soils and their minerals through direct contact with the Earth's atmosphere.
Erosion:
The biggest property of the earth is that it does not remain constant or stagnant rather it always
remain under change and this process goes on. As soon as internal activities of land bring out
some natural features (volcano) on the surface of the earth, many external and natural agents start
working on them to give proper shape. The wearing away of land surface by various natural
agents such as running water, wind, ice, temperature etc. is called erosion.
Once the small pieces of rocks are changed or broken apart by weathering, they may start to be
moved by wind, water, or ice. When the smaller rock pieces (now pebbles, sand or soil) are
moved by these natural forces, it is called erosion.
Erosion is displacement of solids (soil, mud, rock and other particles) usually by the agents of
currents such as, wind, water, or ice by downward or down-slope movement in response to
gravity or by living organisms.
LANDFORMS MADE BY GLACIER ACTION
A glacier is a persistent body of dense ice that is constantly moving under its own weight; it
forms where the accumulation of snow exceeds its ablation (melting and sublimation) over many
years, often centuries. Glaciers slowly deform and flow due to stresses induced by their weight,
creating crevasses, seracs, and other distinguishing features. They also abrade rock and debris
from their substrate to create landforms such as cirques and moraines. Glaciers form only on land
and are distinct from the much thinner sea ice and lake ice that form on the surface of bodies of
water.
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 very old fossil glacial landforms.

A glacier is defined as a mass of ice that moves under the influence of gravity along a confined
course away from its source area. However, the movement is not of the glacier as a whole.
Throughout the glacier bits of ice are melting, tric,kling down-valley and then turning back into
ice the whole time. This means that within the glacier there is a gradual down-valley movement.

Glacial erosion consists of two processes:

(i) plucking or the tearing away of blocks of rock which have become frozen into the base and
sides of a glacier, and
(ii) abrasion or the wearing away of rocks beneath a glacier by the scouring action of the rocks
embedded in the glacier.

The erosional features produced by glaciers include the cirque. A cirque or corrie originates as a
small hollow where snow accumulates. The snow becomes compacted to glacial- ice, forming a
cirque glacier, and eventually flows downslope under the influence of gravity. The characteristic
shape of the cirque is a result. of the freeze-thaw erosion on the headwall and the rotational slip
of ice withi.,n the concave floor of the hollow, which is widened and deepened by plucking.
Many cirques contain small circular lakes called tams. Sometimes corries develop on adjacent
slopes and only a knife-edge ridge, called an arete, separates them.

If a glacier extending down a valley enters a part of the valley which is wider than the rest, the
glacier ice spreads out to fill the valley; this causes the upper layers of the ice to crack along
lines parallel to the valley sides. These cracks are very deep and are called crevasses. As the
amount of ice in a valley increases, the power to erode by a valley glacier also increases. This
results in the glacier deepening, straightening and widening a river valley.

The overdeepening of the valley gives it a characteristic U shape. Hanging valleys are another
common feature ii1. areas that have been glaciated. These are tributary valleys that lie above the
main valley and are separated from it by steep slopes down which streams may flow as a
waterfall or a series of rapids. (Hanging valleys may also form during the retreat of a coastline
under rapid erosion.)

Certain features are produced by glacial deposits. A valley glacier carries a large amount of rock
waste called moraine. The moraine forming along the sides of a glacier is called lateral moraine;
that along the front of a glacier is called terminal moraine; that at the bottom of a glacier is the
ground moraine. When two glaciers join together, their inner lateral moraines coalesce to give a
medial moraine. Terminal moraine material is carried down-valley by the melt waters issuing
from the glacier's snout (front) and is deposited as a layer called an outwash plain. One of the
most conspicuous features of lowlands which have been glaciated by ice sheets is the widespread
morainic deposits. Because of the numerous boulders in the clay these are called boulder clay
deposits.

The deposits are sometimes several hundred metres thick and their surface is marked by long
rounded hills, called drumlins. Large blocks of rock of a material, quite different to that of the
rocks of the region, often occur in areas which lay under ice sheets. These blocks are known as
erratics. Rivers and streams occur inside most glaciers and these are heavily loaded with rock
debris. As an ice front retreats the rivers build up ridge-like deposits called eskers. They develop
on top of the boulder clay deposits. Roche moutonnees are another feature produced by glacial
deposition.