There is hardly any phenomenon on the earth's surface whose origin has been discussed and explained in as many different ways as valleys have. Even the ancient philosophers made a start on the difficult problem of gradational processes, and erosion in general, as can be seen from Strabo's Geographia, Seneca's Quaestiones, and other sources. Herodotus hints at the watergap of the River Isker in the Heimos Range and also at the analogous gorge of the Greek River Peneios.
After these comparatively promising beginnings, there was no further progress till the Renaissance when Leonardo Da Vinci displayed his remarkable insight into uplift and subsequent erosion, concepts that were added to by Varenius and Kircher, who first distinguished undercut and slip-off slopes. In the eighteenth century, the gradational activity of running water was emphasized by many scientists, especially by Hutton in his “Theory of the Earth”. Strangely enough, it was this same time that gave rise to a strong...
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Cross-references
Abrasion; Aggradation; Asymmetric Valleys; Baer—Babinet Law; Base Level; Canyon Cutting; Corrasion; Degradation; Denudation; Drainage Patterns; Erosion; Eustasy; Floodplain; Glacial Geology; Glacial Scour; Gradation; Grade, Graded Stream; Hanging Valley; Incised Meander; Landslides; Mass Movement; Morphogenetic Classification; Morphogenetic Regions; Mudflows; Nickpoint; Pediment; Peneplain; Permafrost; Pothole; Profile of Equilibrium; Quaternary; Rivers; Rivers—Meandering and Braiding; Roche Moutonnée; Savanna Landscape; Slipoff Slope; Solifluction; Stream Capture; Stream Channel Characteristics; Structural Control in Geomorphology; Terraces, Fluvial; Thalweg; Trumpet Valley; Tundra Landscape; Valley (Mountain) Glaciers; Waterfalls; Water Gap; Youth—Maturity—Old Age.
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Fränzle, O. (1968). Valley evolution . In: Geomorphology. Encyclopedia of Earth Science. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-31060-6_392
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-31060-6_392
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