Imagine standing at the edge of a rugged coastline, where towering cliffs, isolated rock columns, and deep caves dominate the scenery. These spectacular landforms are not crafted overnight; they are the result of millions of years of constant battle between the sea and land. Waves, driven by powerful winds, relentlessly erode the coastline, giving birth…
Have you visited any sea beach? If yes, you must have seen, waves crash against the shore. The rhythmic motion of the sea touching the land may appear soothing, but beneath this tranquillity lies one of the most powerful and dynamic forces of nature — coastal processes. These processes constantly shape and reshape the coastal…
As the river flows, it keeps creating marvelous landforms through erosion, transportation, and finally deposition. When the river slows down or its force decreases, it begins to deposit its load, giving birth to depositional landforms. Let’s now explore some of these artistic landforms created by the river. Alluvial Fans and Alluvial Cones Picture this: A…
Suppose you are standing near a broad river flowing gently across a flat, fertile plain. At first glance, you might expect the river to follow a straight path from its origin to its mouth, but instead, it twists and turns like a snake, forming large bends. These bends, my friend, are what we call meanders…
Over centuries, rivers carve, shape, and transform the land — forming valleys, gorges, canyons, and many other landforms. These landforms created by the erosion of running water are collectively called erosional landforms. 1. River Valleys A valley is essentially a low-lying depression on the Earth’s surface carved by a river. It is considered a negative…
Imagine you are standing at the top of a lush green hill just after a heavy rainfall. You notice how the water rushes down the slope, carrying with it small rocks, soil, and debris. If you keep observing it over time, you’ll realize that this flowing water slowly but steadily carves out channels, erodes the…
The channel bed topography refers to the shape and configuration of the riverbed, which includes various features like riffles, pools, sandbars, and islands formed by the continuous interaction of water flow and sediment transport. These features are shaped by the erosion and deposition processes within the channel. The riverbed is never uniform; instead, it alternates…
Let’s imagine you’re standing at any point along a river’s course and you take a vertical cut from one side of the valley to the other. The cross-sectional view you get is known as the transverse profile of the river. This profile gives a clear picture of the shape and depth of the valley and…
Imagine you are following a river’s journey from its source (like a glacier or spring in the mountains) to its mouth (where it meets the sea, ocean, or lake). If you could slice the river vertically and observe its entire length from the side, the resulting profile is called the Longitudinal Profile or Long Profile…
Let’s say you are standing on the banks of a river—perhaps the Ganga in Varanasi or the Brahmaputra in Assam. As you observe the river flowing, have you ever wondered why the river takes a particular path, why some rivers are wide and shallow while others are narrow and deep, or why rivers bend and…