SOME RECENTLY DEVELOPED LANDFORMS - CLIMATIC IMPLICATIONS

Many landforms are geologically youthful. Most, though by no means all , are comparatively minor but several, like gullies, are widely distri buted. Some are the work of processes that have been active over sever al centuries or a few millennia. Some may have formed under the influe nce of a single set of climatically induced processes, but others are genetically more complex. Other recent landforms represent the culmina tion of processes that have long been active but which until recently had no surface expression. Yet others result from meteorological event s acting on land surfaces rendered vulnerable by separate, in some ins tances clearly non-climatic, events. Even those forms which are climat ically triggered are genetically complex and many are related to meteo rological episodes rather than secular climatically induced processes. The climatic interpretation of landforms is as complex in the short t erm as it is in the long.