Landform Picture Gallery
Special Galleries: Glacial Landforms and Features, Mountains
Landforms built up by the movement of Earth material, usually sediment.
Alluvial Fan—They're all over the West; here's one in California.
Bajada—A debris apron built of many alluvial fans.
Bar—A sediment pile that may also be a barrier.
Barrier Island—A long sandy bar guards the coast.
Beach—The most comfortable depositional landform.
Delta—Triangular or not, the mouth of a river.
Floodplain—The wide muddy flats flanking a river.
Landslides—A wide assortment of sediment deposits.
Lava Flow—These occur wherever volcanoes are found.
Levee—Natural berms along a river, rarely seen today.
Mud Volcano—A mostly gentle edifice made of gas-charged sediment.
Playa—Dry lake beds are flat, but exciting places.
Spit—When a bar or barrier island grows offshore into open water.
Terrace—Ancient benches in desert basins tell of wetter times.
Tombolo—A rare orthogonal sand bar on a northern California beach.
Tufa Towers—Limy growths exposed as lakes subside.
Volcanoes—Mountains that grow from the inside up.
Special Galleries: Landslides, Tombolos, Volcano Types, Mud Volcanoes
Landforms carved by the action of erosion.
Arch—A short, sweet natural arch in Arches National Park, Utah.
Arroyo—A typical flat-floored desert streambed.
Badlands—An example in Wyoming shows their ragged glory.
Butte—Call this Southwest icon "bewt" or be the butt of ridicule.
Canyon—Here's a big one, the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone.
Chimney—A typical rock column stands off a beach.
Cirque—A mountainside bowl shaped by glaciers.
Cuestas—Gentle erosional ridges on the Colorado Plateau.
Gorge—A high-walled rocky valley cut by vigorous waters.
Gulch—A steep and narrow ravine eroded by flash floods.
Gully—This is just a few meters deep, but all gullies are small.
Hanging Valley—Found in glacial areas and coasts, not Western movies.
Hogback—Ridgy examples from the Western range.
Hoodoo—Desert erosion carves grotesque shapes like this mushroom...
Hoodoo Rock—. . . and this one, which must be a camel.
Inselberg—Remnant rock knobs typical of deserts.
Mesa—A northern Utah table mountain.
Monadnock—A mountainous remnant of widespread regional erosion.
Mountain—The quintessential erosional landform.
Ravine—Not big enough to call a canyon, but otherwise similar.
Sea Arch—This one studs the ocean near Goat Rock Beach, California.
Tor—Rocky knob common in Britain—but also in the Mojave Desert.
Valley—There are dozens of kinds; this one is simple.
Volcanic Neck—Bishop Peak is one, on the central California coast.
Water Gap—These form in two different ways.
Wave-Cut Platforms—Two are shown here: one ancient, one active.
Special Gallery: Wave-Cut Platforms
Landforms made by movements of the Earth's crust.
Escarpment—A large cliff usually made by faulting.
Fault Scarp—Short-lived sign of earthquake displacement.
Pressure Ridge—When push comes to shove, rock rises.
Rift Valley—Formed by splitting lithospheric plates.
Sag Basin—When pull comes to tug, rock falls.
Shutter Ridge—A classic indicator of fault motion, on the Hayward fault.
Stream Offset—A creek zigzags as it crosses the San Andreas fault.
Special Galleries: San Andreas fault, Subduction-Related Rocks
Other picture galleries:
Fossil Pictures
Glaciers and Ice Pictures
Mineral Pictures
Rock Pictures
Geologic Features and Processes Pictures
Geology and Society Pictures
Free Geologic Wallpaper Pictures
