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A landform is a natural or anthropogenic [1][2] land feature on the solid surface of the Earth or other planetary body. Landforms together make up a given terrain, and their arrangement in the landscape is known as topography. Landforms include hills, mountains, canyons, and valleys, as well as shoreline features such as bays, peninsulas, and ...
Universal natural resources and physical phenomena that lack clear-cut boundaries, such as air, water and climate, as well as energy, radiation, electric charge and magnetism, not originating from civilized human actions. In contrast to the natural environment is the built environment.
Limestone pavement – Natural karst landform consisting of a flat, incised surface of exposed limestone. Mesa – Elevated area of land with a flat top and sides, usually much wider than buttes. Mushroom rock – Naturally occurring rock whose shape resembles a mushroom. Natural arch – Arch-shaped natural rock formation.
The Great Soviet Encyclopedia of 1979 defines landscape science as "the branch of physical geography that deals with natural territorial complexes (or geographic complexes, geosystems) as structural parts of the earth's geographic mantle" and states that "The basis of landscape science is the theory that the geographic landscape is the primary ...
Matters are complicated by the fact that the words nature and natural have more than one meaning. On the one hand there is the main dictionary meaning for nature: "The phenomena of the physical world collectively, including plants, animals, the landscape, and other features and products of the earth, as opposed to humans or human creations."
Nature is an inherent character or constitution, [ 1 ] particularly of the ecosphere or the universe as a whole. In this general sense nature refers to the laws, elements and phenomena of the physical world, including life. Although humans are part of nature, human activity or humans as a whole are often described as at times at odds, or ...
A natural arch.. Physical geography can be divided into several branches or related fields, as follows: Geomorphology [7] [8] is concerned with understanding the surface of the Earth and the processes by which it is shaped, both at the present as well as in the past.
Geomorphology (from Ancient Greek: γῆ, gê, 'earth'; μορφή, morphḗ, 'form'; and λόγος, lógos, 'study') [2] is the scientific study of the origin and evolution of topographic and bathymetric features generated by physical, chemical or biological processes operating at or near Earth's surface. Geomorphologists seek to understand ...