Pre‐Quaternary Landforms and Landscapes

The conventional view that, with the exception of exhumed features, landscapes are of later Cenozoic (Quaternary) age is based on flawed assumptions. For example, weathering and erosion are not equally distributed over the land surface. As a result, considerable landscape elements of Paleogene and early Neogene ages survive, as do significant elements of Mesozoic derivation. Cretaceous and Jurassic features are widely reported, and Triassic forms increasingly so. These very old paleoforms have been dated by reference to volcanic, sedimentary, and duricrusted valley fills, and to correlative deposits. Some old surfaces are protected by duricrusts, but others are bedrock etch surfaces. Their conservation calls for either revisions of models of landscape evolution or a reconsideration of the factors responsible for shaping the land surface.

Bedrock · Cenozoic · Cretaceous · Earth science · Landform · Mesozoic · Neogene · Paleogene · Quaternary · Sedimentary rock · Structural basin · Weathering · Geological formations and processes · Geology · Geology and Paleoclimatology Research · Paleontology · Paleontology and Stratigraphy of Fossils