Denudation, Planation, and Cyclicity: Myths, Models, and Reality

1.
12 Denudation, Planation, and Cyclicity: Myths, Models, and Reality

AR Orme, University of California, Los Angeles, CA, USA
r 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
1.12.1 Introduction 209

1.12.2 Denudation: Foundations of the Concept before 1830 209
1.12.3 Planation: A Prolonged Debate, 1830–1960 212
1.12.3.1 Marine Planation 212
1.12.3.2 Subaerial Planation 213
1.12.3.2.1 Peneplanation 215
1.12.3.2.2 Pediplanation 216
1.12.3.2.3 Panplanation 216
1.12.3.2.4 Eolation 217
1.12.3.2.5 Glacial planation 217
1.12.3.2.6 Cryoplanation 217
1.12.3.2.7 Etchplanation 217
1.12.3.3 Compound Planation 218
1.12.4 Cyclicity in Geomorphology 219
1.12.4.1 Early Concepts of Earth Cycles 219
1.12.4.2 The Cycle Mania of the Nineteenth Century 220
1.12.4.3 The Ascent and Supremacy of the Davisian Cycle of Erosion, 1880–1930 220
1.12.4.4 The Descent of the Davisian Cycle of Erosion, 1930–1960 223
1.12.4.5 Alternative Planation Cycles during the Davisian Hegemony 224
1.12.5 The Quest for Reality 224
1.12.5.1 The Penckian Model 224
1.12.5.2 Crustal Mobility – Plate Tectonics 225
1.12.5.3 Process and Form Revisited 226
1.12.5.4 Crustal Instability – Denudation and Isostasy 227
1.12.6 Conclusion 229
References 229
Glossary Climate change A significant change in climate, ideally

Active margin A linear zone where tectonic plates derived from statistical data that reveal trends, such as rising
either converge with one another (convergent margin) temperature or increasing precipitation or diminished
or shear past one another (shear or transform storminess that persist over at least several decades. For
margin). These zones are usually the focus of plate times preceding instrumental records, climate change may
collision, accretion, subduction, volcanism, and orogenic be inferred, less certainly, from surrogate data (e.g., tree
activity. rings, corals, glacier advances).
Catastrophism A term, coined retroactively by William Coastal inheritance Forms such as shore platforms,
Whewell in 1832, describing a belief, common in the seacliffs, or continental shelves whose present shape reflects
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, that ascribed Earth’s or implies two or more phases of development, for
features to divine creation, or Noah’s flood, or catastrophes example, by seas subject to glacio-eustasy and glacio-
like earthquakes and volcanoes. Rejection of biblical isostasy that return repeatedly to near previous levels.
Catastrophism was a thrust of Uniformitarianism during Compound planation surface A denuded surface that is
the nineteenth century. In a modified form, shaped by two or more planation styles occurring at
Neocatastrophism recognizes that the present is not always different times (e.g., a subaerial surface invaded by the sea, a
the key to the past or to the future. strandflat).
Climate The synthesis of weather defined over an agreed Continental freeboard Land area above sea level as a
time period, say 30 years. percentage of the continental block area (nautical: the
Orme A.R., 2013. Denudation, planation, and cyclicity: myths, models, and
reality. In: Shroder, J. (Editor in Chief), Orme, A.R., Sack, D. (Eds.), Treatise
on Geomorphology. Academic Press, San Diego, CA, vol. 1, The
Foundations of Geomorphology pp. 205–232.
Treatise on Geomorphology, Volume 1 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-374739-6.00012-9 205

vertical distance between the waterline and a ship’s Eolation A concept of planation by insolation weathering,
main deck). ventifaction, and aeolian deflation, named by W.J. McGee
Craton The basement complex of Precambrian and assigned global status superior to fluvial erosion by
metamorphic rocks forming the framework or ancestral Charles Keyes in 1912. Whereas the processes are real, the
platform of the continents. Cratons may be buried beneath concept of widespread eolation was overblown.
later platform covers (sedimentary and volcanic rocks) or Epeirogeny The large-scale warping or flexuring of
exposed as shields (e.g., Laurentian, Fennoscandian Earth’s crust in response mostly to changes in heat,
shields). pressure, phase changes, and mass transfers in the lower
Cryoplanation The lowering of continental surfaces by lithosphere and upper mantle. Epeirogenic flexuring
intense frost action, with waste removal aided by may also occur along the margins of active orogens and
solifluction, streamflow, and wind, considered typical of from isostatic adjustments to crustal loading and
nonglacial cold regions. The term, introduced by Kirk Bryan unloading.
in 1946, has replaced the earlier ‘altiplanation.’ Equilibrium A condition of balance between opposing
Cycle of erosion A belief that landforms evolve through forces. It is usually expressed in geomorphology as dynamic
evolutionary stages and may be repeated over time in equilibrium, for example, in a stream, wherein channel
response to environmental changes (tectonics, climate, base form remains unchanged because gravitational and
level). One idealized but extreme erosion cycle was frictional forces are balanced, even as streamflow and
popularized by William Morris Davis during and after the sediment transport continue.
1880s. Etchplanation A double-planation concept involving
Cyclicity The regular or irregular recurrence of events over rock decay along a deepening but irregular weathering
time. Based on the ‘succession of worlds’ recognized by front, followed by stripping of weathered waste by streams,
James Hutton and the several epochs identified by ideally in response to falling base level or climate change.
catastrophists and uniformitarians alike (but over different Etched plains were expanded to accommodate continental-
timeframes), the cycle mania of the nineteenth century saw scale planation.
the concept invoked for Earth cycles, orogenic cycles, Eustasy A term for global sea-level change, introduced by
sedimentary cycles, erosion cycles, climate cycles, Suess (1888). In its modern sense, eustasy reflects changes
biogeochemical cycles, life cycles, and the like. in ocean volume (e.g., attributable to glaciation) or in
Davisian hegemony The period in the growth of ocean-basin capacity (e.g., attributable to tectonism).
geomorphology, approximately 1890–1940, during which Exhumation The exposure by denudation of a surface that
the views of William Morris Davis, notably his cycle of had been buried by cover sediment or rock. Ancient
erosion, dominated the field. Although not all agreed planation surfaces thus exhumed may confound
with Davis, this dominance declined slowly into the 1950s interpretations of later planation.
but continued to be expressed in some texts beyond Fluid dynamics The branch of mechanics that treats fluids
the 1970s. (water, air) in motion in response to forces (e.g., gravity,
Denudation Literally the laying bare or uncovering of an pressure fields) and in turn exert forces on objects (e.g.,
underlying object by the removal of overlying material. In sediment, stream channels).
geomorphology, it has come to mean surface lowering by Geomorphology The study of landforms and the
the combined action of mass wasting and erosion processes. processes that shape them.
Diluvialism A belief that surficial deposits (diluvium) and Hydrologic cycle The cyclic movement of water involving
many landforms owed their origin to one or more divinely evaporation from the ocean and other water bodies,
inspired deluges, notably Noah’s flood described in Genesis transpiration from organisms, condensation of water vapor
(Chapters 6–8). The belief was widely held by in the atmosphere, precipitation (mainly as rain and snow)
establishment scientists of the late eighteenth and early from the atmosphere to the surface, uptake by organisms,
nineteenth centuries, until most diluvium was better by Earth materials, runoff from land back to the ocean, and
explained by former glaciation. sublimation (between ice and vapor).
Duricrust A hard crust at or near Earth’s surface formed Inselberg Literally an ‘island mountain’ or an isolated
mostly of minerals that have survived weathering as hill, generally of resistant rock, rising from a denuded
residues or alteration compounds (e.g., Fe, Al) or that have surface, first named by German scientists working in Africa
been reprecipitated from groundwater solutions (e.g., Ca, in the late nineteenth century.
Fe, Mg, Si, U). Depending on host rock and climate, typical Isostasy A term for Earth’s potential crustal equilibrium,
duricrusts include alcrete (bauxite), calcrete (caliche), introduced by Clarence Dutton in 1882. Isostasy is
ferricrete (laterite), and silcrete. They are useful indicators of expressed in elevation changes attributable to crustal
past and present climate and weathering processes. loading by orogens, sediment, ice sheets, and water, and
Enlightenment A philosophical movement in the conversely to crustal unloading by denudation,
eighteenth century in Europe in which reason and deglaciation, and water removal. Glacio-isostasy and hydro-
individual thought came to question ideas based on faith isostasy effect significant changes in 102–104 years.
and dictated thought (as in organized religion). Laterite A surface and near-surface accumulation of
Enlightenment thinking favored contemporary advances in weathering residues and alteration compounds, rich in iron,
Earth science. aluminum, and other less soluble minerals, but low in
Denudation, Planation, and Cyclicity: Myths, Models, and Reality 207
soluble minerals (e.g., carbonate) and silica that have been Pediment A gently sloping rock surface, up to several
leached away. kilometers wide, readily observed in but not confined to
Marine planation A denudation process involving waves, semiarid lands. Pediments probably develop from a
currents, and mass wasting, accompanied by seacliff retreat combination of scarp retreat and debris removal by
behind a widening shore platform. Ideally, with a large tidal sheetwash and streamflow.
range and a gentle continuing rise of sea level relative to the Pediplanation An extension of pediment formation
land, marine planation could extend far inland. This (pedimentation) invoked to explain regional-scale, even
concept, common in the mid-nineteenth century, is still continental-scale planation, with resistant inselbergs.
debated. Although initially identified for arid and semiarid regions,
Marine regression The fall of sea level relative to the land. the process was extended worldwide by King (1953, 1962).
The last global regression accompanied the growth of the Peneplanation The process of prolonged subaerial
last Pleistocene ice sheets and was responsible for exposing planation leading to the formation of a peneplain, a near-
much of the continental shelf to a depth of B130 m below plain with just sufficient slope for rivers to reach the sea.
the present sea level around 20–30 ka. The concept was first introduced by William Morris Davis in
Marine transgression The rise of sea level relative to the the 1880s to represent the end stage of his erosion cycle
land. The last global transgression, generally called the during which the landscape passes through conceptual
Flandrian Transgression, accompanied the melting of the stages of youth, maturity, and old age.
last Pleistocene ice sheets from B20 to B5 ka and became Physiography An archaic term used from the eighteenth
responsible for defining most of the world’s coasts. to the early twentieth centuries to describe Earth’s surface
Mass wasting The combined action of chemical and features and related systems, including climate and
mechanical weathering and mass movement whereby Earth vegetation (e.g., Huxley, 1877), superseded, generally more
materials are weakened en masse and prepared for removal narrowly, by geomorphology, in the late nineteenth century.
solely under the influence of gravity, excluding erosion Planation The process by which a surface is reduced
processes such as rivers, winds, and glaciers. toward a near-plane. Because both mass wasting and
Mobilism The concept that recognizes that Earth’s crust erosion are involved in the leveling process, the term
moves in response to deep-seated forces within the ‘planation surface’ is preferred to the ambiguous ‘erosion
lithosphere and underlying mantle. Crustal mobility was surface’ (which may range from a vertical cliff to a level
variously invoked in early Earth science, for example, as plain).
continental drift, but was resurrected during the plate- Plate tectonics A concept developed in the mid-twentieth
tectonic revolution that led to modern mobilist ideas and century that, building on earlier notions of continental
explanations. drift, defines Earth’s crustal mobility in terms of relatively
Neptunism A belief, attributed to Abraham Werner and rigid continental and oceanic plates shifting across the
his followers, that Earth’s rocks had been precipitated lithosphere and upper mantle in response to subcrustal
from a universal ocean, which shaped landforms as it forces and plate dynamics.
receded. Plutonism The processes by which magma from the
Orogeny Intense regional, usually linear deformation, of mantle and lower lithosphere crystallize at depth beneath
the Earth’s crust leading to mountain building along active Earth’s surface, generally as large batholiths or as smaller
plate margins. Orogens typically form between colliding laccoliths, bosses, and the like. The term was originally
continental plates (Himalaya) or from subduction and favored by James Hutton (in opposition to Werner’s
volcanism as oceanic plates move under continents Neptunism).
(Andes). Severe folding, faulting, and crustal shortening Polycyclic (or multicyclic) landscape A landscape whose
result from compression or transpression. form is thought to reflect more than one planation cycle,
Pangea The last supercontinent that assembled between presumably in response to changes in base level.
B360 and B250 Ma from the collision of several earlier Polycyclicity offers an escape hatch for scholars faced with
continents. The asynchronous break-up of Pangea after stepped planation surfaces and river terraces, but in reality
250 Ma led to the dispersal of continents toward their evades fundamental questions regarding planation
present locations (also Pangaea; Greek pan ¼ all, gaia processes, tectonism, and rock resistance.
¼ Earth) Remote sensing The observation and measurement of
Panplanation A modification of the Davisian cycle of data by recording devices not in direct contact with the
erosion, introduced by Crickmay (1933), to emphasize object. These devices sense electromagnetic energy (light,
lateral planation by rivers leading to floodplain coalescence heat, radio waves) and force fields (electrical, gravity,
in the later stages of an erosion cycle. magnetic surveys). Remote recording platforms commonly
Passive margin A zone where tectonic plates have moved include aircraft, space satellites, surface ships, and
apart from one another (divergent margin). Although this submerged vessels.
may be initiated at an active spreading center or rift zone Rheology The study of the deformation and flow of
characterized by faulting, magmatic venting, and high matter, notably non-Newtonian flows of liquids (e.g., debris
seismicity, subsequent plate motion becomes more passive flows) and plastic flows of solids (e.g., glaciers, lower crust,
as plates move away from the rift zone and each other. upper mantle).
Scientific Revolution Any rapid or far-reaching mid-nineteenth century and revealed principles relevant to
development in science; specifically, two scientific geomorphology, notably concepts of open and closed
revolutions are generally recognized: (1) in the seventeenth systems, energy conservation, homeostasis, positive and
century when, based in part on earlier precedents, negative feedbacks, and entropy.
mathematics, physics, chemistry, astronomy, and biology Topography Literally, writings about a place, used
began emerging in a recognizably modern form; (2) in the formerly for descriptions of all natural and artificial features
late twentieth century, related to advances in automation, of a place or region (e.g., Leland’s Topography, 1543) and
electronics, remote sensing, and information technology. now used in a more limited sense to describe or delineate
Sedimentation The process of accumulating sediment in the surface features of a place (e.g., topographic map).
layers, generally by deposition of particles previously held Tor A small inselberg, named from its occurrence in the
in suspension or as bedload (in air or water), or from mass granite oldlands of southwest Britain, but occurring
movement, or from the accumulation, evaporation, or worldwide in relatively resistant rocks. Tors are exposed
precipitation of organic and inorganic materials in situ. survivors of deep weathering, later modified by surface
Soil mechanics The mechanical properties and physico- processes such as periglaciation, but that have escaped
chemical behavior of soil and associated earth materials, destruction by glaciation. Tors are characteristically
particularly relevant to slope stability and failure, and slope associated with etchplanation and pediplanation.
engineering. Transform fault A strike–slip fault normally associated
Stabilism The concept that Earth’s crust, and particularly with oceanic spreading centers, characterized by lateral
its continents and ocean basins, are fixed in place, subject displacement between offset ridges that is contrary to the
perhaps to vertical fluctuations in response to Earth’s overall offset.
expansion or contraction or to massive sediment loading. Tsunami A long-period, usually shallow-water wave
Despite early evidence to the contrary, stabilist concepts triggered normally by underwater earthquakes, volcanic
were dominant until shattered by the plate-tectonic activity, or landslides. The term means ‘harbor wave’ in
revolution of the mid-twentieth century. Japanese; if earthquake-triggered, it may be called a ‘seismic
Strandflat A gently deformed, part-submerged, uneven sea wave.’ It is not a ‘tidal wave.’
platform, up to 60 km wide, typically occurring on resistant Uniformitarianism A belief, developed in the late
crystalline rocks along Norway’s Atlantic coast. It is eighteenth century, that the present is the key to the past,
considered a compound planation surface formed by frost that Earth’s surface features are mostly shaped by observable
weathering, sea-ice erosion, marine abrasion, and glacial processes over a very long time. The belief stresses
erosion in conjunction with glacio-eustatic and glacio- uniformity of physical principles, but not of physical
isostatic changes. processes whose magnitude and rate change. The term is
Stratigraphy The description, depiction, distribution, akin to Actualism, but differs from Gradualism.
explanation, and significance of rocks, narrowly with Volcanism, volcanicity The processes by which magma
respect to sedimentary strata, more widely with respect to and other matter from the upper mantle and lower
all rock types. lithosphere are erupted onto Earth’s surface and into the
Tectonism The forces involved in producing the structural atmosphere as solids (e.g., lava, ash), liquids (juvenile
framework of Earth’s crust, through epeirogeny (large-scale, water), and gases (e.g., water vapor, CO2, CH4, SO2,
gentle warping and flexuring) and orogeny (more localized H2SO4).
but intense deformation and mountain building). Weather The instantaneous state of the atmosphere,
Tectonism replaced ‘diastrophism’ during the mid-twentieth varying from hour to hour and day to day but not long
century. The adjective ‘tectonic’ has been parlayed, enough to imply climate change.
questionably, into the noun ‘tectonics.’ Weathering The combined action of all the processes of
Thermodynamics That branch of physical science that decay and disintegration whereby rocks and other materials
engages dynamic relations between heat and other forms of at or near the Earth’s surface are weakened and prepared for
energy. Classical thermodynamics developed in the early to removal.
Abstract
Denudation, planation, and cyclicity are interrelated themes that have played leading roles in geomorphology over the past
200 years, but have also been beset by myths and models generally found wanting in terms of emerging reality. De-
nudation, or surface lowering of the land by mass wasting and erosion, was understood in principle by 1800 and has since
been refined. Planation implies that denudation continues until land is reduced to a low plain just above the base level of
erosion, generally the sea. Around 1850, continental planation was commonly attributed to marine processes, notably in
insular Britain. Soon, based partly on new evidence from America, marine planation was rejected, except along continental
margins, in favor of subaerial planation, but this in turn generated much debate. Over the next 100 years, subaerial
planation was attributed, solely or collectively, to mass wasting, rivers, wind, glaciers, and frost. Even when the roles of rain
and rivers were broadly agreed, the mechanisms were not: downwearing or backwearing of slopes, vertical or lateral river
erosion, deep weathering or shallow sheetwash, and so on. Concepts of peneplanation, pediplanation, panplanation,
eolation, cryoplanation, glacial planation, etchplanation, and exhumation each had their champions. Cyclic planation, a
problem child of the cycle mania in the nineteenth century, involved repeat planation reset to changed conditions.
Attractive cyclic models were devised but struggled with unprovable assumptions. After 1950, most planation cycles needed
to contend with new evidence for crustal mobility, form–process relations, isostatic responses to denudation, and stricter
geochronology. Even so, planation surfaces do exist and the search for scenarios consistent with reality continues.
1.12.1 Introduction Homer’s Iliad (o700 BC). Subaerial denudation was early
documented by Strabo (B63 BC–AD 24) for Mediterranean
The science of geomorphology involves the quest for know- lands, Avicennia (Ibn Sina) (B980–1037) in central Asia, and
ledge about landforms and the processes that shape them Shen Kuo (1031–95) in China, among others (Figure 2).
based on observable facts, testable hypotheses, reliable Notions of denudation were reaffirmed by Renaissance scho-
methods, and reproducible results. This seems commendably lars such as Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519), Georg Bauer
simple! Yet the history of geomorphology shows that this (Agricola, 1494–1555), and Bernard Palissy (1510–89), who
quest is elusive, that the science has been confounded variously described how mass wasting and running water
frequently by curious myths and defective models, and that ‘stripped bare’ mountains and removed debris to nearby
the search for truth continues, better informed certainly, but plains. By this time, however, the flexible polytheism of the
yet to reach its goals. Denudation, planation, and cyclicity are ancient world, with gods for most processes and events, had
major interrelated themes that have played leading roles in succumbed in the Middle East and Europe to restrictive
attempts to understand how and why landforms change monotheism in which one supreme being was held respon-
over time. sible for Earth’s creation and natural features. Despite earlier
Denudation, literally the laying bare of an underlying notions to the contrary, denudation studies in Europe were
framework by the removal of overlying material, is the least long constrained by biblical caveats that limited natural pro-
ambiguous of these terms. In geomorphology, it has come to cesses to the few millennia since the alleged creation. With
mean surface lowering by the combined action of mass little time available, most scholars focused on divine provi-
wasting (weathering, mass movement) and erosion (by rain, dence and catastrophes to explain Earth’s origin and surface
rivers, seas, wind, or glaciers). Planation is more contentious features. Nathanael Carpenter (1589–1628) wrote that
because, as often used, it implies that denudation continues, ‘‘mountains, valleys, and plains were created in the Earth from
eventually ignoring underlying rocks and structures, until the the beginning, and a few made by the violence of the Deluge’’
landscape is reduced to a plane surface just above the ultimate (Carpenter, 1625). The ‘Deluge’ alluded to the biblical Noah’s
base level of continental erosion, namely the sea. In reality, flood, which, ignoring the survival of Mount Ararat, was fre-
denudation rarely proceeds that readily or that far, and as- quently invoked by catastrophist scholars to explain denuda-
sumptions to that end ignore the intrinsic variability of the tion, erosion, and surficial deposits (diluvium). A Jesuit
Earth’s crust and its adaptability to transfers of mass across its scholar, Athanasius Kircher (1602–80), combined Greek
surface and, more profoundly, to mantle processes that in- mythology with biblical Ecclesiastes to attribute river origins
fluence the crust. When applied to the above, cyclicity is even to subterranean conduits from encircling Oceanus (Kircher,
more controversial because it implies that denudation and 1664–78). Such notions offered little scope for prolonged
planation are recurrent events that are repeated over time in denudation. Palissy had known better – but had been im-
response to internal self-regulation or external forcing, which prisoned for heresy!
in turn raise more complex issues. As biblical notions of Earth’s age waned in the face of
This essay examines each of these themes in turn, and the growing evidence to the contrary, a more rational approach to
myths and models they engendered, and concludes with a surface processes gradually emerged. ‘Enlightened’ catas-
reality check on their perception in light of recent research. trophists led the way in their search for more time in which to
Although a brief reference is made to concepts in the distant explain rock sequences and their fossils. The Comte de Buffon
historical past, the essay emphasizes the role that denudation, (1707–88) came to view the six days of biblical creation as an
planation, and cyclicity have played during the emergence of allegory for much longer periods of Earth history (Buffon,
geomorphology as a distinct discipline over the past 200 years 1778), separated by events that Georges Cuvier (1769–1832)
(please refer frequently to Figure 1). reconciled with the catastrophes he found in the fossil record
(Cuvier, 1812–21).
Even during the supremacy of biblical Catastrophism,
1.12.2 Denudation: Foundations of the Concept useful observations on denudation had been made. George
before 1830 Hakewill (1579–1649) and John Ray (1627–1705) in England
drew attention to river erosion (Ray, 1692); the itinerant Dane,
The term ‘denudation’ (and its equivalent in other languages) Nicolaus Steno (1638–86), formulated stratigraphic prin-
has been used in Earth science since at least the seventeenth ciples, including the law of superposition, from evidence for
century, although often confused with the more restrictive repeated denudation and sedimentation (Steno, 1669); and
term ‘erosion.’ Nevertheless, an awareness of denudation Pierre Perrault (1611–80) was quite aware of the relation-
processes, specifically water and wind, had long existed, as ship between soil erosion and river velocity and discharge
implied by the roles of the river god Oceanus (the father of all (Perrault, 1674). Later, scholars like Mikhail Lomonosov
rivers) and the destructive wind god Aeolus described in (1711–65) in Russia, Giovanni Targioni-Tozzetti (1712–83) in
Year 1700 1800 1900 2000

Concept
Multiple creations
Biblical
Catastrophism
Hooke Conrad Neocatastrophism
Burnet Ray Buffon Cuvier buckland
Bretz Alvarez
Uniformitarianism
Lyell Greenwood
Desmarest Hutton Playfair
Lamarck Evolution
Darwin
Alvarez
Contraction theory Orogenic cycles
Orogeny
Hutton Dana Le Conte Fisher Bucher Gilluly Plate
Tectonics
Continental mobility Snider Taylor Hess,
Wegener du Toit
Dietz
Monoglaciation
Glacial concepts
Venetz Agassiz
Charpentier Glacial cycles
Chamberlin A. Penck and Brückner

J. Geikie Climate Cycles
Adhémar Croll Milankovitch Hays

Fluvial concepts
Chézy From
Perrault Guglielmini hydraulics
DuBuat
A. Penck Leopold et al.
Gilbert Leighly Hjulström
From medicine and mathematics Drainage networks
Keill Jackson Gravelius Horton Strahler

Marine depositional cycles
Sedimentation
Hutton Cuvier Lyell
A. Geikie Suess
Marine planation cycles
Ramsay
Peneplanation
Erosion Guettard Davis Peltier
Desmarest Hutton Playfair Lyell Dana Powell Crickmay
Pediplanation
Gilbert McGee King

Cyclic From soil science Etchplanation
concepts
Büdel Thomas
Wayland Mabbutt
Penck model
W. Penck
Classical mechanics Thermodynamics Equilibrium concepts
Leighly Hack
Non-cyclic Newton Carnot Clausius Gilbert Mackin
Leopold
concepts Isostasy Denudation /isostasy
Gravity anomalies
Airy Dutton Joly

Bouguer Herschel Molnar
Pratt Lawson Daly Schumm
England
Phases Acceptance of concept

(i.e., widely but not universally accepted in scientific circles)
Decline of concept
Primitive Formative Main Modified Declining (i.e., widely but not universally rejected)
Some significant benchmarks
Figure 1 Formative influences and individuals associated with denudation, planation, and cyclicity, 1700–2000. Reproduced from Orme, A.R.,
2007c. The rise and fall of the Davisian cycle of erosion: prelude, fugue, coda, and sequel. Physical Geography 28, 474–506.
Italy, and Jean-Etienne Guettard (1715–86), Nicolas Desmar- earthquakes, or other cataclysms (Chorley et al., 1964; Davies,
est (1725–1815), and Pierre du Buat (1734–1809) in France 1969; Orme, 1989).
insisted that valleys were formed gradually by the streams These developments were grist to the mill of the Scottish
flowing in them, rather than suddenly by biblical floods, physician and farmer, James Hutton (1726–97), who, in 1785,
Figure 2 Denudation on Santa Cruz Island, California, a warm,

seasonally wet, Mediterranean-type environment where erosion has
been accentuated by sheep overgrazing. Strabo described a similar
scene in Greece 2000 years ago: Courtesy A.R. Orme.
presented a concept of Earth history based on observable

processes over unlimited time, a theme expanded in his later
writings (Hutton, 1788, 1795). Thus:
But if the succession of worlds is established in the system of na-

ture, it is in vain to look for anything higher in the origin of the
earth. The result, therefore, of our present enquiry, is that we find
no vestige of a beginning, – no prospect of an end (Hutton,
1788: 304). Figure 3 John Playfair (1747–1819) clarified Huttonian concepts of
denudation and cyclicity in 1802. Reproduced from National Portrait
Despite its tortuous prose, Hutton’s theory initiated a Gallery, London
paradigm shift from Catastrophism to Uniformitarianism,
from assumptions based on faith to reasoning based on ob-
servation and logic. His friend, John Playfair (1747–1819,
Figure 3), clarified subaerial denudation as follows:
Wateryfrom the smallest rill to the greatest riveryattacks what-

ever has emerged above the level of the sea and labours incessantly
to restore it to the deep. The parts loosened and disengaged by the
chemical agents, are carried down by the rains, and, in their des-
cent, rub and grind the superficies of other bodiesy[T]he con-
sequence of so many minute, but indefatigable agents, all working
together, and having gravity in their favour, is a system of universal
decay and degradation, which may be traced over the whole surface
of the land, from the mountain top to the sea shore (Playfair, 1802:
99–100).
In France, stimulated by Desmarest and du Buat, Jean-

Baptiste Lamarck (1744–1829) expressed similar views on
degradation over what he called the ‘limitless resource’ of time
(Lamarck, 1802), but was mostly ignored in the troubled
intellectual climate prevailing at that time across Europe. In
Britain, Huttonian ideas gained gradual acceptance, notably
from the keen inductive reasoning of George Poulett Scrope Figure 4 Charles Lyell (1797–1875), seen here late in life,
(1797–1876), and were endorsed by Charles Lyell (1797–1875, confirmed uniformitarian principles of denudation in his Principles of
Figure 4) in 1830, although catastrophism in various guises Geology (1830–33) but overemphasized marine planation.
Reproduced from National Portrait Gallery, London.
lingered on, especially in continental Europe.
Between 1830 and 1833, Lyell published three volumes on
‘‘The Principles of Geology: Being an Attempt to Explain the to the past, and, despite his later wavering, concepts
Former Changes of the Earth’s Surface, by Reference to Causes of gradual denudation became firmly established. The term
Now in Operation.’’ The subtitle emphasized the author’s be- denudation was soon in wide use across the sciences, for ex-
lief in slow change over lengthy time, in the present as the key ample, by naturalists Charles Darwin (1809–92) and Alfred
Russel Wallace (1823–1913). What was less certain was the

process of denudation leading to planation.
1.12.3 Planation: A Prolonged Debate, 1830–1960
As the concept of gradual denudation over time took hold,

three questions arose: (1) What processes were involved? (2)
What was the end product? (3) How much time was needed
for these processes to achieve their end? In the early nine-
teenth century, proselytes of Hutton and Playfair were sug-
gesting that prolonged denudation would eventually reduce
high relief to an erosional plane, a planation surface, at or near
sea level. The time required for planation was unclear but
certainly far exceeded the few millennia offered by biblical
scholars. As geomorphology progressed, however, this simple
idea was confounded by new knowledge. By the mid-twentieth
century, the sea, chemical weathering, frost action, scarp
retreat, rivers, wind, and glaciers had each been invoked, with
varying conviction, to explain planation. By then, time was no
longer a limiting factor because Earth’s age had been extended
from 3 million years, based on stratigraphic inferences
(Buffon, 1778), to at least 2 billion years based on radiometric
dating (Holmes, 1944), and later to the present 4.6 billion
years. In addition, imbued with the logic of planation, many
scholars sought evidence to support their convictions – and,
perhaps predictably, found it. Apart from tacit references
to rock structure and hardness, most investigators gave scant
Figure 5 Incipient marine planation. Top: wave-cut notch in quartz-
regard to the response of Earth’s crust to prolonged denuda-
mica schist near Prawle, Devon, England, separating the modern
tion and mass transfers of rock waste. This essay now addresses shore platform from two earlier platforms related to slightly higher
the various modes of planation invoked. Pleistocene seas. Bottom: cemented late Pleistocene beach deposits
overlying a near-horizontal shore platform cut across steeply dipping
aeolianite (indurated dune sand) related to an earlier lower sea level,
1.12.3.1 Marine Planation near Durban, South Africa: Courtesy A.R. Orme.
Somewhat surprisingly, despite centuries of observation on the

denuding effects of rain and rivers, it was the work of the sea
that emerged during the nineteenth century as the most likely Darwin (1844) to see the work of waves, currents, and tides in
cause of widespread planation (Figure 5). There were several the Andes and Australia’s Blue Mountains, and Sharpe (1856)
reasons for this. First, diluvialists who believed in the biblical to find similar evidence 2700 m above sea level in the Alps.
deluge, and neptunists who followed mineralogist Abraham More significantly, Lyell’s penchant moved Andrew Crombie
Gottlob Werner (1749–1817) in ascribing all rocks to an Ramsay (1814–91, Figure 6) toward widespread marine
aqueous origin beneath a global ocean, found some comfort planation.
in a marine hypothesis. Second, Targioni-Tozzetti (1754) had The concept of marine planation in Britain emanated from
ascribed the shaping of the Tuscan hills north of Rome to the sea-girt peninsulas of the southwest, beyond or little af-
fluvial erosion on an emergent marine plain. Third, in insular fected by Pleistocene glaciation. There, deformed Paleozoic
Britain, the source of much early geomorphology, where no rocks underlie dissected plateaus, 50–200 m high and
place was more than 150 km from the open coast, the effects 20–100 km wide, which reach the coast in fossiliferous marine
of storm seas and large tidal ranges in promoting cliff retreat terraces and abandoned seacliffs of Pleistocene age (Figure 7).
behind widening shore platforms were clearly evident It was no far stretch of the imagination for Ramsay (1846) to
(Chambers, 1848). Fourth, despite his keen understanding interpret the plateau country of South Wales as a ‘plain of
of rivers, Lyell’s desire to explain denudation by ‘causes now marine denudation’ later dissected by rivers, nor for others to
in operation’ led him, rather curiously, to invoke marine in- follow this lead elsewhere. Extending Lyell’s notion of marine
cursions for the erosion of a rising Wealden dome and to incursions onto rising land, Ramsay opined that, given suf-
attribute glacial deposits to debris shed from icebergs drifting ficient time, such plains could be cut saw-like during stable sea
across former shallow seas. Scrope, a confirmed uniformi- levels and that several plains might be cut by rising or falling
tarian, saw no reason to introduce the sea to the Weald and seas. In this context, his work anticipated future ventures into
preferred the ‘agency of rain and rivers through an indefinite denudation chronology based on changing sea levels. A major
time’ (Scrope, 1835: 440). Nevertheless, Lyell’s ideas triggered weakness in this hypothesis was the absence of verifiable
much debate on evidence for marine erosion inland, leading marine deposits on these allegedly emergent plains. This
evidence would have helped the cause. Nevertheless, in an

early attempt to use quantitative slope data in support of a
hypothesis, Henry Clifton Sorby (1826–1908) invoked
measurements of 141 and 301 to justify his belief in a marine
origin for the treads and risers of the North York Moors
(Sorby, 1850).
By the 1860s, Ramsay’s belief in marine planation had
waned from his recognition of river erosion both before and
after Pleistocene glaciation. Archibald Geikie (1835–1924,
Figure 8) cooled enthusiasm further by stating that ‘‘before the
sea could pare off more than a mere marginal strip of land y
the whole land would be washed into the ocean by atmos-
pheric denudation’’ (Geikie, 1868: 254). Douglas Johnson
(1878–1944) invoked a 200-m wave base (!) for his evo-
lutionary coastal models but stopped short of wholesale
planation (Johnson, 1919). Nevertheless, many scholars con-
tinued to favor the hypothesis, notably Joseph Barrell
(1869–1919) in the northern Appalachians and Austin Miller
(1900–68) in southern Ireland (Barrell, 1920; Miller, 1939).
Also, there were those who, as the concept of eustasy was
refined, sought to reconcile evidence for changing sea levels
Figure 6 Andrew Crombie Ramsay (1814–91) initially favored marine
with that for subaerial planation.
planation for South Wales plateaus but later recognized the supremacy
of subaerial denudation: Courtesy the British Geological Survey.
1.12.3.2 Subaerial Planation
During the mid-nineteenth century, as marine planation
concepts emerged and receded, the principles of subaerial
denudation were being refined. Lyell had strayed from the
uniformitarian path but Scrope, although largely lost to pol-
itics, maintained perceptive views on relations between sub-
aerial denudation and surface uplift. George Greenwood
(1799–1875) vigorously refuted marine planation (and Lyell)
in favor of comprehensive subaerial denudation (Greenwood,
1857). Joseph Beete Jukes (1811–69, Figure 9), perhaps aware
of Targioni-Tozzetti’s ideas a century earlier, explained how the
rivers of southern Ireland had originated on an emergent
marine plain, which they then destroyed differentially with
respect for rock hardness (Jukes, 1862). In a view that would
haunt later geomorphology (but understandable for the Var-
iscan structures of the Paleozoic rocks involved), Jukes separ-
ated denudation from uplift:
The present surface of the ground, where it differs from the original
surface of deposition of the immediately subjacent rock, is in all
cases the direct result of denudation, either atmospheric or marine,
the internal forces of disturbance having only an indirect effect on
it, and having ceased to act long before the present surface was
formed (Jukes, 1862:391–392).
Figure 7 Extended marine planation. Top: coastal plateaus near Then Geikie (1868) calculated that it would take just over
Tintagel, Cornwall, England, have usually been attributed to prolonged 5 million years for Britain to be reduced by rain and rivers to a
marine planation in a eustasy-dominant setting, although marine
plain near sea level. By this time, ample evidence for the ef-
sediment is rare. Bottom: coastal plateaus in western Baja California,
ficacy of mass wasting and rivers was flooding into European
Mexico, clearly express marine planation in a tectonism-dominant
setting, with abandoned seacliffs (inset) and related beach and academies from overseas.
nearshore deposits: Courtesy A.R. Orme. North America, for better or worse long dependent on
Europe and European visitors for scientific stimulus, was now
Ramsay explained, as Lyell had done, by their removal during flexing its geomorphic muscles. Familiar with fluid dynamics,
the sea’s withdrawal and by later subaerial erosion. This is James Dwight Dana (1813–95) of Yale showed how fluvial
reasonable, in view of the severe Pleistocene periglaciation of erosion in Pacific islands varied with stream velocity and
southwest Britain after the supposed emergence, but real slope, and how dissection increased as Hawaiian volcanoes
Figure 8 Three giants of late nineteenth century science at Harper’s Ferry, Appalachian Mountains, in 1897. Left: Archibald Geikie (1835–1924)
affirmed the supremacy of ‘atmospheric denudation’ in 1868; Center: John Wesley Powell (1834–1902) recognized the major role of river erosion
and base-level constraints along the Colorado River in 1869–1872. Right: Charles Doolittle Walcott (1850–1927) defined geologic time from
sedimentation rates: Courtesy the U.S. Geological Survey.
1856), and William Phipps Blake (1826–1910), although

pondering a Mojave Desert ‘recently covered by the sea,’ was
accurately describing fluvial and aeolian erosion farther
south (Blake, 1858). Joseph Peter Lesley (1819–1903), whose
Appalachian studies had emphasized structural controls of
relief, now accepted the reality of subaerial denudation
(Lesley, 1866).
In the 1880s, observations in the Appalachians and
American West provided for the formulation by William
Morris Davis (1850–1934) of a cycle of erosion, an imagina-
tive conceptual model of subaerial denudation that culmin-
ated in widespread planation. In the west, far removed from
the sea, John Wesley Powell (1834–1902, Figure 8), Grove
Karl Gilbert (1843–1918, Figure 10), and Clarence Edward
Dutton (1841–1912, Figure 10) had recently established
a firm basis for the developing field of geomorphology.
From Powell’s observations on the Colorado River (Powell,
1875, Figure 11), Davis borrowed the concept of base level
for the lower limit of subaerial erosion and invoked changes
of base level to explain the ‘rejuvenation’ of landforms
(Davis, 1902). From Gilbert’s work in the Henry Mountains
Figure 9 Joseph Beete Jukes (1811–69) explained how the rivers of (Gilbert, 1877), Davis redefined concepts of grade, equi-
southern Ireland had originated on an emergent marine plain, which
librium, and planation, and from Dutton’s description of the
they reshaped into a subaerial surface that varied with rock hardness:
Courtesy the British Geological Survey.
‘great denudation’ of the Colorado Plateau, beginning and
ending with rapid uplift (Dutton, 1882a, b, Figure 12), Davis
acquired the temporal framework for an erosion cycle. Dutton
aged (Dana, 1849). During the Pacific railroad surveys of the stated:
1850s, John Strong Newberry (1822–92) identified fluvial
dissection and past glacial and pluvial conditions in the All regions are tending to base levels of erosion, and if the time be
Cascade Range but denied Lyell-type submergence (Newberry, long enough each region will, in its turn, approach nearer and
Figure 10 Studies by Grove Karl Gilbert (1843–1918, left) and Clarence Edward Dutton (1841–1912, right) in the American West did much to
confirm the supremacy of subaerial denudation in shaping continental landscapes: Courtesy the U.S. Geological Survey.
Figure 12 The Grand Canyon of the Colorado, evidence of the great

Figure 11 Colorado River, retreating scarps, and Colorado Plateau,
uplift and great denudation recognized by Dutton (1882a), captured here
Utah: Courtesy A.R. Orme.
by accompanying artist-geologist William Henry Holmes (1846–1933) in
a chromolithograph: Courtesy the U.S. Geological Survey.
nearer, and at last sensibly reach it y.But the greater portion of the
land of the globe y has been subject to repeated throes of ele- of youth, maturity, and old age. This was a qualitative evo-
vation or depression. Such a change y at length destroys the lutionary model that emphasized change through time, cul-
preexisting relation of a region to its base level of erosion. If it is minating in old age in a ‘peneplain.’ The model spawned
depressed it becomes immediately an area of deposition. If it is much discussion and many variants well into the twentieth
elevated new energy is imparted to the agents and machinery of
erosion (Dutton, 1882b: 102).
century, including forays by Davis and his followers into
marine, aeolian, glacial, periglacial, and karst planation, be-
fore advances in the understanding of crustal mobility, climate
The Davisian cycle of erosion explained landforms in terms change, geomorphic processes, and geologic time saw it wither
of structure, process, and stage, with an emphasis on the stage away. It is now appropriate to discuss the various modes of
of development expressed in the landscape (Davis, 1884, subaerial planation, stimulated by Davis’ initiative, that were
1885, 1889, 1896). Building on contemporary concepts and recognized over the next 70 years.
for simplicity, the model invoked initial rapid uplift of Earth’s
crust, followed by prolonged structural quiescence during 1.12.3.2.1 Peneplanation
which subaerial processes denuded landforms over uncertain To Davis and his followers, the peneplain was an extensive
intervals of time that were equated with stages of life in terms erosion surface produced by prolonged mass wasting and
Figure 14 W.J. McGee (1853–1912) defined pediments and

sheetflood erosion in the American West, work that led others to the
concept of pediplanation: Courtesy the U.S. Geological Survey.
into a pediplain. This concept drew in part on evidence

Figure 13 William Morris Davis (1850–1934), the influential Harvard from the semiarid American West, where gently sloping, often
professor, whose model Cycle of Erosion dominated geomorphology slightly concave, planation surfaces had been recognized
from the 1880s into the 1930s and beyond. Sketch by Hope Sawyer by Gilbert (1877) and named ‘pediments’ by W.J. McGee
in von Engeln’s Geomorphology, 1942; Macmillan. (1853–1912, Figure 14) in 1897. Pediments are rock surfaces,
bare or thinly mantled in rock waste, thought to develop
downwearing by sheetwash and channel flows, with just mainly from sheetflow erosion beneath the base of retreating
sufficient relief for its rivers to reach the sea, the ultimate base mountain fronts. The concept gained support from a model of
level (Figure 13; see also Oldroyd, Chapter 1.5). Isolated hills slope retreat beneath chalk escarpments, postulated earlier by
yet to be consumed by denudation he termed ‘monadnocks’ Osmond Fisher (1817–1914; Fisher, 1866), and from a model
after a mountain in New Hampshire. An old peneplain could formulated later by Walther Penck (1888–1923), who viewed
be ‘rejuvenated’ by uplift or falling base level and thereby slope forms as compromises between uplift and denudation
slowly devoured by fresh erosion. As Davis described the pe- that, once established, would retreat behind a widening in-
neplain: ‘‘the decrepit surface must wait either until extin- clined plane (Penck, 1924; see later).
guished by submergence below the sea, or regenerated by Pedimentation was expanded into ‘pediplanation’ by
elevation into a new cycle of life’’ (Davis, 1885: 432). This pediment coalescence and slope retreat on a regional scale,
approach seemed to work reasonably well in denuded old- best observed in arid and semiarid regions (Maxson and
lands and ancient orogens, where, if one believed the model, Anderson, 1935; Howard, 1942). This concept became global
presumed peneplains could be inferred from deformed up- when Lester King (1907–89), based on African evidence, in-
land surfaces and even accordant summits inherited from voked prolonged pediplanation for base leveling across former
earlier base leveling. In the American East, where Davis had Gondwana continents and beyond, with ‘inselbergs’ as yet
formulated his model, the so-called Fall Zone and Schooley unconsumed by erosion rising above pediplains (King, 1953).
peneplains of the central Appalachians seemed to express two King’s vision (1962) was geomorphology on a grand scale but,
cycles of post-Paleozoic planation (Sharp, 1929; Johnson, like peneplanation, it suffered from similar defects with regard
1931). Peneplain hunting in the Davisian mode soon became to assumptions of prolonged continental stability.
a popular pursuit elsewhere. However, as Davis came to real-
ize, the model worked less well in the active orogens of the
1.12.3.2.3 Panplanation
American West, which presented opportunities for alternative
In 1933, Colin Crickmay (1899–1988) introduced the con-
models.
cept of panplanation, which emphasized lateral planation by
rivers leading to floodplain coalescence in the later stages of an
1.12.3.2.2 Pediplanation erosion cycle. Although these fluvial principles were demon-
Dissatisfaction with peneplanation, particularly its emphasis strable at local and regional scales, for example, in the
on downwearing, encouraged others to invoke backwearing of Mississippi and Amazon basins, the concept lacked conviction
slopes as the process whereby initial relief was slowly shaped as a global model.
1.12.3.2.4 Eolation and periglaciation were first coined early in the twentieth
In 1905, Davis adapted findings from the Kalahari Desert century, when cold nonglacial regions began attracting serious
(Passarge, 1904) to show how arid landscapes were denuded study and paleocryogenic processes were identified in lands
in temporal stages based on vague allusions to wind action beyond former Pleistocene ice fronts. Cryoplanation, a com-
and fluvial erosion, mainly the flash floods and sheetflows pound term for surface reduction and smoothing involving
triggered by summer monsoon rains in the American West nivation, frost action, ground-ice, pedimentation, solifluction,
observed by Gilbert and McGee. Although he admitted seasonal runoff, and wind, came later (Figure 17, Bryan, 1946;
‘‘reaching too far into the field of untestable speculation’’ Demek, 1969). Like glacial planation, cryoplanation was
(Davis, 1905b: 394), he also ignored studies, notably Blake’s always going to be climatically restricted but this did not stop
(1858) description of deflation and ventifaction, that might Louis Peltier (1916–2003) from devising a periglacial cycle in
have given his paper more authority (Orme, 2004). This 1950 that culminated in planation by cryogenic processes
did not prevent one enthusiastic follower, Charles Keyes (Peltier, 1950). By that time, Davisian geomorphology was in
(1871–1951), from describing a scheme whereby deserts could retreat and Peltier’s model soon faded.
be leveled by progressive insolation weathering and deflation
(Figure 15), for which he borrowed McGee’s term ‘eolation’
(Keyes, 1912). By this time, from observations in the Qattara 1.12.3.2.7 Etchplanation
Depression and Death Valley, the water table (not sea level) The concept of an ‘etched plain’ emerged from observations
was widely recognized as the controlling base level for wind by John Falconer (1876–1947) in northern Nigeria, John
erosion. Although Keyes viewed eolation as globally more Jutson (1874–1959) in Western Australia, and Jimmy Wayland
important than fluvial and glacial erosion, the concept was (1888–1966) in east Africa earlier in the twentieth century
unworkable for planation beyond local and small regional (Falconer, 1912; Jutson, 1914; Wayland, 1934). The ‘etched
scales, and soon forgotten. Davis’ last paper, published post- plain’ was seen as the product of a two-stage process of sub-
humously in 1938, returned to desert processes but, having aerial denudation involving, first, deep differential rock decay
never seen sheetfloods in action, relied on McGee’s earlier along a downward-penetrating weathering front and, later, the
work in the Sonoran Desert.
1.12.3.2.5 Glacial planation

Stimulated by visits to glaciated regions, Davis formulated a
glacial cycle initiated and ended by climate change, but also
proposed an ideal whereby cirque coalescence and valley
glaciers might reduce mountains to a rough plain whose
lowering to below the level of snow accumulation would end
the cycle (Figure 16). William Hobbs (1864–1953) devised a
more comprehensive cycle leading to glacial planation, from
which Davis distanced himself (Hobbs, 1911). Although sig-
nificant, for example, in the Laurentian Shield, glacial plana-
tion was always going to be at best a regional phenomenon
superimposed on earlier subaerial surfaces whose regoliths
would be entrained in moving ice sheets, thereby exposing
striated bedrock.
Figure 16 The Palisade glacier complex just below the B4000-m
crest of the Sierra Nevada, California. Davis and others suggested
1.12.3.2.6 Cryoplanation that cirque coalescence could lead to glacial planation and that the
Cryogenic processes were latecomers to the planation lexicon. accordant skyline summits indicated a preglacial peneplain. The sierra
Although frost action had long been recognized, terms carried an important ice cap during several Pleistocene cold stages:
such as nivation, equiplanation, altiplanation, solifluction, Courtesy the Spence Collection, UCLA.
Figure 15 Deflation, seen here in Death Valley, California, was a major component of Keyes’ ‘eolation’ (1912), a concept that garnered little
support for global planation: Courtesy A.R. Orme.
Figure 17 The scarp and tread of a modern cryoplanation terrace,

central Alaska: Courtesy F.E. Nelson.
Figure 18 Antrim Plateau, Ireland. The red bed is Fe-rich laterite

formed by prolonged subaerial weathering of the lower basalt and
later buried by the upper columnar basalt of the North Atlantic
Igneous Province. Minerals and plant fossils within the laterite
suggest subtropical rainy or seasonally wet conditions and etching
around 60–54 Ma, during the onset of sea-floor spreading between
Ireland and Greenland: Courtesy A.R. Orme.
stripping of this rotted rock waste by streams in response

to falling base level and/or climate change (Figure 18). Etch-
planation was an extension of this concept to denudation at Figure 19 The etchplanation concept illustrated from the Dartmoor
regional and continental scales. Partial stripping of exposed region, England. Top: Cenozoic deep weathering of Variscan granite
laterite and other weathering features beneath residual mesas, produces rock waste (growan, grus) around residual core stones and
commonly capped by ferricrete, silcrete, calcrete, and other quartz veins (Two Bridges); Middle: subsequent exhumation of less
duricrusts, helped ensure their survival. Advanced stripping weathered granite reveals a tor (Haytor); Bottom: downstream
revealed bedrock surfaces, irregular rather than planar, be- accumulation of transported granite waste, mostly kaolinitic clay and
quartz sand, interbedded with Sequoia-rich lignite in Paleogene basin
neath the weathering front and inselbergs or tors in resistant
(Bovey Basin). Courtesy of A.R. Orme.
rocks as yet unconsumed by weathering. The double-plana-
tion concept found favor in the deeply weathered landscapes
of the humid tropics (Budel, 1957), but was more obvious in Sequoia trees indicative of warm subtropical conditions
semiarid lands (Mabbutt, 1961; Thomas, 1965). Beyond the (Figure 19). The etchplanation concept was destined to sur-
tropics, it came to be invoked to explain the origin of tors, vive because it invoked observable processes that explained
residual hills topped by unconsumed rock piles, typical of the persistence of irregular surfaces dotted with resistant rocky
oldlands developed in granite, sandstone, or quartzite that, hills, duricrusts, and weathered residues.
although modified by Pleistocene periglacial processes, es-
caped destruction by Pleistocene glaciers (Linton, 1955). The
1.12.3.3 Compound Planation
Cenozoic exhumation of Dartmoor tors, for example, is linked
to the stripping of weathered granite (growan, grus) and its Despite preferences for one or other discrete forms of base
transport into nearby basins where kaolinitic clays and quartz leveling, some scholars favored compound planation whereby
grits are interbedded with Oligocene lignite containing different processes successively imprinted their legacy on
‘palimpsest’ landscapes. Notable in this context were attempts Venezuela’s 2800-m high Pacaraima Plateau is formed across
to impose subaerial planation on emergent marine plains, near-horizontal sedimentary cover rocks (B1800-Ma Roraima
exemplified by Jukes’ early model for southern Ireland, or Supergroup) that have experienced prolonged Phanerozoic
conversely to impose marine transgressions onto peneplains. denudation for which no datable evidence remains.
Among the latter was the model devised by Sidney Wooldridge Lest the reader assume that explanation of alleged plana-
(1900–63) and David Linton (1906–71) for the Cenozoic tion surfaces is a futile deductive exercise wherein theory
denudation of southeast England. This invoked, in sequence, precedes and then ignores facts to the contrary, myths in
emergence from Cretaceous seas, Paleogene peneplanation, search of gods, this segment concludes with reference to the
early Neogene deformation, later Neogene peneplanation, Norwegian strandflat. The strandflat is an uneven, gently de-
partial Pliocene marine submergence, punctuated Pleistocene formed, part-submerged platform of resistant crystalline rock
emergence, and subaerial dissection (Wooldridge and Linton, extending along Norway’s Atlantic coast from Stavanger in the
1939, 1955). Despite its elegance and arguable logic, the real south to Finnmark in the north, a linear distance exceeding
evidence for this scenario was flimsy. Nevertheless, it spawned 2500 km (Corner, 2005). The platform is up to 60 km wide
many comparable denudation chronologies. and ranges from 40 m below to 100 m above sea level, where
The marine component of this scenario had been stimu- its inner edge is commonly marked by sea caves and steep cliffs
lated by concepts of global sea-level change implied earlier as a whose base varies from above the postglacial marine limit to
consequence of glacial theory (MacLaren, 1842). Eduard Suess below sea level. It has been subjected to many studies and
(1831–1914) coined the term ‘eustasy’ for rhythmic changes there is no dearth of explanations (e.g., Reusch, 1894; Nansen,
of sea level, presumed from the stratigraphic record, which he 1922; Holtedahl, 1998). Consensus suggests that the strandflat
attributed to falling sea levels caused by episodic subsidence of is a compound (polygenetic) planation surface formed during
the sea-floor on a contracting Earth and to subsequent trans- Pleistocene time by frost weathering, sea-ice erosion, marine
gressions as ocean waters were displaced by sediment shed abrasion, and glacial erosion, most likely during ‘average’ cold
from emergent continents (Suess, 1888). Shortly after, recog- stages when the outer coast was unglaciated but subject to
nition of multiple marine terraces around the Mediterranean glacio-eustatic and glacio-isostatic changes in relative sea level,
basin (Lamothe, 1899; Depéret, 1918) and a glacio-eustatic which perhaps exhumed a sub-Mesozoic surface. This appeal
explanation of coral reefs (Daly, 1910) led scholars to revisit to so many causes by so many scholars illustrates the problems
glacio-eustatic stillstands during Pleistocene emergence to ex- incurred in studying planation surfaces.
plain alleged evidence for partial planation and stepped river
profiles (e.g., Baulig, 1928, 1935; Hickok, 1933; Wooldridge
and Linton, 1939). Work of this kind continued until the
1.12.4 Cyclicity in Geomorphology
founding assumptions were proven wrong.
Coastal inheritance is a form of compound planation that
Cyclicity has often been invoked in the quest for scientific
results from the sea’s return to levels it occupied, more or less,
explanation and prediction. Based on earlier antecedents,
during earlier stillstands, especially during the sea-level oscil-
cyclic ideas became rampant in the nineteenth century; some
lations of late Cenozoic glacial and interglacial stages. In
cycles lost their wheels and others survived and prospered.
southwest Britain and southern Ireland, beyond the ravages of
This essay now explores cyclicity in geomorphology, and the
Pleistocene glaciation, closely spaced shore platforms backed
rise and fall of various notions associated with denudation.
by abandoned sea cliffs testify to several inheritance episodes
(Orme, 1962). More significantly, in the absence of severe
tectonic deformation, present continental shelves in many
1.12.4.1 Early Concepts of Earth Cycles
parts of the world have surely been inherited from numerous
episodes of partial marine and subaerial planation that Change through time has long fascinated students of the
accompanied the eustatic and isostatic oscillations of later natural world and it is perhaps inevitable that attempts to
Cenozoic time. Unfortunately, most evidence for such organize and interpret emerging information should lead to
inheritance has been destroyed by later erosion. proposals for cycles. At one time or another in the history of
Compound planation may also embrace unconformities in science there have been erosion cycles, sedimentary cycles,
the rock record whereby buried erosion surfaces are exhumed orogenic cycles, climate cycles, life cycles, biogeochemical
to influence later planation. In former Gondwana, Pre- cycles, and so forth, which scholars would invoke, accept, or
cambrian erosion surfaces emerge from beneath Phanerozoic reject according to their wont.
cover rocks on planes similar to those involving Mesozoic Simply stated, change through time may be viewed as
or Cenozoic planation (Twidale, 1976). Many Precambrian chaotic or unidirectional or cyclic (Orme, 2007c). Chaotic
cratons have suffered repeated denudation, burial, and ex- change is unpredictable, reveals no readily discernible tem-
humation over time that make it difficult to infer when poral pattern, and is unacceptable to those who seek order in
and how planation occurred, notably in the Laurentian and things, whether by natural processes or by divine intervention.
Fennoscandian shields, where Pleistocene glaciers erased evi- Unidirectional change may be linear, progressing at a steady
dence for earlier denudation. The Colorado Plateau, underlain rate, or nonlinear, involving accelerations, decelerations,
by near-horizontal Paleozoic strata raised by late Cenozoic interruptions, and thresholds. Early catastrophic concepts of
uplift, also underwent ‘great denudation’ of its post-Paleozoic Earth history were essentially linear and brief, beginning with
cover rocks but the precise scenario and its isostatic impli- creation and ending in oblivion, notions that encouraged
cations have yet to be resolved (Figures 11 and 12). divine explanations or vice versa. Cyclic change may be proven
or presumed. Proven cycles involve events whose recurrence present, not the uniformity of physical processes, a distinction
has been confirmed by scientific means. After much specu- not always appreciated. The writings of Playfair (1802) and
lation, the hydrological cycle and the astronomical cycles in- Lyell (1830–33) ensured that Hutton’s model eventually took
volving Earth–Moon–Sun relations were proven, more or less, hold but the latter’s rigidity contrasted with Hutton’s temporal
in the seventeenth century. Presumed cycles involve similar flexibility in sculpturing processes.
events that are thought to repeat through time but have not By the mid-nineteenth century, cyclicity was being debated
been confirmed. Most cycles of erosion fall within this cat- across the natural sciences. For example, when Louis Agassiz
egory. They are in good company because science is replete (1807–73), a paleontologist with impeccable catastrophist
with cycles invoked, rejected, and resurrected, notably those credentials, lent his support to the Glacial Theory (Agassiz,
involving climate change. 1840), earnest enquiries began for the climate changes re-
In the ancient civilizations of Greece and Rome, the Middle sponsible for what became known as the Great Ice Age. Some
East, and Asia, scholars often invoked cycles for one purpose or scholars returned to classical antecedents to ponder the rele-
another (Oldroyd, 2006). Some cycles were reasonably obvious, vance of known cyclic changes in Earth–Sun relations
such as those involving Earth-Moon-Sun relations for daily, (Adhémar, 1842; Croll, 1864). Glacial Theory also had im-
monthly, and seasonal ocean-atmosphere changes. Others were plications for global sea level (MacLaren, 1842) and, when
more obtuse but when scholars such as Aristotle (384–322 BC) multiple Pleistocene glaciations began to be recognized in the
and Strabo wrote of Earth’s repeated uplift and subsidence, of late nineteenth century, cyclic concepts of glacio-eustatic sea-
emergence and submergence, and of erosion and deposition, level change soon appeared (Daly, 1910).
they were implying cyclicity. As these civilizations waned, no- Meanwhile, in America, Dana (1847) proposed that geo-
tions of cyclicity were advanced in Asia and from there, by trade logic time involved prolonged periods of quiet that alternated
or conquest, brought to Europe in the later Middle Ages. Tenth- with pulses of rapid change and mountain building, the latter
century scholars in Basra conceived from astronomic evidence a attributable to Earth’s contraction (Figure 20). Although the
cycle of erosion and removal of waste to the ocean, which re- mechanisms invoked for mountain building would change,
versed the roles of land and sea over a Great Year of 36 000 years this view of episodic orogeny long persisted, as one of two
and was repeatable over unlimited time (Ellenberger, 1996). In ‘‘extremes in a cyclic process that swings back and forth be-
Renaissance Europe, Jean Buridan (B1297–1358) and Leo- tween (relief) minima and maxima’’ (Bucher, 1939: 432).
nardo da Vinci were among those who, despite uncertainty Cyclic notions were reinforced by evidence for sedimentary
about process, invoked similar cyclic concepts (Oldroyd, 2006). rhythms and cycles in the stratigraphic record (Newberry,
During the so-called Enlightenment, cyclic concepts 1873). Joseph Le Conte (1823–1902, Figure 20) stated the
persisted despite the constraints of biblical time and catas- cyclic concept as follows:
trophism. Steno (1669) invoked two cycles of flooding, sedi-
mentation, and dislocation in his model of Earth history; Geological history, like all other history, has its periods of com-
Robert Hooke (1635–1703) described ‘‘several vicissitudes of parative quiet, during which the forces of change are gathering
changes wrought upon the same part of the Earth’’ (Waller, strength; and periods of revolution, during which the accumulated
forces manifest themselves in conspicuous changes in physical
1705: 313); and Thomas Burnet (1635–1715) offered curious
geography and climate, and therefore in rapid movements in the
cyclicity in his seven cataclysmic stages for Earth’s past, march of evolution of organic forms (Le Conte, 1877: 100).
present, and future (Burnet, 1681, 1689). As catastrophism
waned, even the influential Cuvier (1812–21, 1817) came to
Then, from his work on the Colorado Plateau, Dutton
invoke several ‘révolutions,’ or cycles, to explain the sudden
recognized that ‘‘Erosion and sedimentation are the two half-
appearance and disappearance of organisms in alternating
phases of one cycle of causation’’ (Dutton, 1882a: 96).
marine and freshwater strata of the Paris Basin. His ‘irruptions
By the late nineteenth century, the limitless time of Hutton’s
of the sea’ were revealed by discontinuities between strata
‘succession of worlds’ had been reined in. Scientists were now
and, true to his catastrophist form, the latest was attributed
seeking Earth’s age from cooling rates inferred from its initial
to Noah’s flood. Nevertheless, Cuvier seemed to understand
molten state and from sedimentation rates, which together
cycles of erosion and deposition, continental emergence and
yielded estimates ranging from 20 million to 400 million years
submergence, and long episodes of terrestrial stability separated
(Thompson, 1864, 1899; King, 1893; Walcott, 1890). McGee
by brief violent catastrophes. Meanwhile, Desmarest (1806)
(1893) showed the futility of these approaches by computing
was tracing the evolution of Auvergne’s volcanic landscapes
a mean age of 6 billion years but, allowing for errors, placed
through sequential ‘époques’ over extended time, work begun
this between a 10-million year minimum and a 5-trillion year
in 1763 and known to Hutton.
maximum! Soon after, the application of radioactive principles
to mineral decay (Holmes, 1913) extended Earth’s age beyond a
billion years (Holmes, 1913), more than sufficient for those
1.12.4.2 The Cycle Mania of the Nineteenth Century who would invoke cyclicity for Earth-shaping events.
The ‘succession of worlds’ described by Hutton (1788) was a
cyclic model based on unlimited time punctuated by episodic 1.12.4.3 The Ascent and Supremacy of the Davisian Cycle
changes. He viewed ‘‘The natural operations of this globe, by of Erosion, 1880–1930
which the size and shape of our land are changed, are so slow
as to be altogether imperceptible’’ (Hutton, 1795: 563). He The cycle of erosion gestating in Davis’ mind was thus a
also stressed the uniformity of physical principles, past and derivative of hypotheses developed earlier by others, while his
Figure 20 James Dwight Dana (1813–95, left) and Joseph Le Conte (1823–1902, right) influenced Davis’ cycle of erosion by identifying in the
geologic record lengthy quiet periods separated by pulses of mountain building. Reproduced with permission from Merrill, G.P., 1924. The First
One Hundred Years of American Geology. Yale University Press, New Haven, 773 pp.
early reference to the ‘cycle of life’ (Davis, 1885) accorded pacifist beliefs in no way impeded his forcefulness in debate
well with contemporary interest in Darwinian evolution and (Figure 13). His position at Harvard (1885–1912) and invi-
the ‘cycle of changes’ expressed by Thomas Henry Huxley tations overseas provided Davis with platforms from which to
(1825–95) in a popular physiography text (Huxley, 1877, proselytize (Davis, 1912; Chorley et al., 1973). In addition, the
1881: 216). But Davis selected from these works only those Association of American Geographers, which Davis founded
elements that would support his model, ignoring or debasing in 1904, ensured a sympathetic audience for his views. For
other concepts that might present complications (Orme, many years, the association provided a pulpit for the Davisian
2007b). scheme in all its persuasive forms while other issues, notably
Davis based his model on reconnaissance, interpreting crustal instability and real geomorphic processes, were dis-
landscapes with a broad brush rather than from detailed couraged or ignored (Orme, 2004).
measurement. If one accepted its premise, the model was The rise of Davis’ cycle of erosion did not occur in an
simple and imaginative, shorn of ambiguity, and couched in intellectual vacuum. Even as he honed the model, sequential
terms that students could understand. It soon became popular landform concepts and cyclic sedimentation were being rec-
and its author, emboldened, began presenting it as ‘the geo- ognized by others. Thomas Chamberlin (1843–1928) used
graphical cycle’ (Davis, 1899, 1909). In reducing mountains to terms such as youth and old age to describe Wisconsin valleys,
a peneplain, the basic model was linear and unidirectional; attributed episodic orogenies to ‘diastrophic cycles’ or ‘cor-
it became cyclic when landforms were rejuvenated by uplift related pulsations,’ and following Suess, invoked transgres-
or falling base level. Davis’ cycle focused initially on ‘normal’ sions and regressions to explain unconformities between
or fluvial landscapes in humid temperate lands, with relief rock sequences (Chamberlin, 1898, 1909). Others discerned
increasing during youth, as rivers incised their valleys, and rhythms in the stratigraphic record, including rhythmic bed-
then decreasing into old age, as interfluves were lowered ding of Cretaceous marine sediment, which Gilbert (1895)
(Figure 21). As his ideas matured, he embraced interruptions attributed to climate change arising from the precession of the
to the cycle caused by changing base levels, volcanic activity, or equinoxes, and the remarkable Carboniferous cyclothems
climate change, and encouraged variants based on special (Barrell, 1917; Wanless and Weller, 1932). By 1920, climate
conditions (Davis, 1905a). He viewed the postulate of initial cycles related to Earth’s orbital variations were being raised to
rapid uplift one of convenience and, although flexible, a higher level by Milutin Milankovitch (1879–1958). How-
maintained the pedagogic value of this approach in the face of ever, despite growing evidence for multiple glaciations and
criticism (Davis, 1932). possible links to orbital forcing (Chamberlin, 1899), climate
Acceptance of the cycle of erosion owes much to Davis as a cycles were not invoked to explain erosion cycles, presumably
person – a small dapper man of great intelligence and self- because the former appeared to operate on much shorter
discipline, of boundless enthusiasm and strong will, whose timescales than the latter (Milankovitch, 1920).
Initial surface Subsequent erosion
H Initiating
uplift
Base level Peneplain
Youth Maturity Old age

A1. Peneplanation (after W.M. Davis)
Time
Base level
A2. Pediplanation (after L.C. King)

Time
Duricrust
Tor
H
Incipient
tor
Base level Etchplain
A3. Etchplanation (after E. Wayland, J. Büdel)

Time
Tectonic uplift vector Surface wash
Denudation vector H = Elevation
B. Non-cyclic denudation concepts Isostatic response vector
Convex Straight concave

H slope
slope slope
Base level
B1. Variable uplift-slope response model (after W. Penck)
Duricrust Duricrust
Erosion without
isostatic response Continuing denudation
Regolith
original base level

original base level
Initial isostatic response Early isostatic response Full isostatic response
B2. Tectonic uplift-denudation-isostatic response model (after A.R. Orme, Molnar and England)
Figure 21 The author’s interpretation of cyclic and noncyclic denudation models. The three cyclic models depict over time: A1, peneplanation;
A2, pediplanation; and A3, etchplanation. For simplicity, initial rapid uplift, followed by prolonged structural quiescence is assumed. The two
noncyclic models depict: B1, variable uplift-denudation; and B2, uplift-denudation-isostasy. Reproduced from Orme, A.R., 2007c. The rise and fall
of the Davisian cycle of erosion: prelude, fugue, coda, and sequel. Physical Geography 28, 474–506.
During its supremacy, and despite inherent limitations, the 1934: 179). In reality, the Davisian model was already in de-
Davisian model drove much geomorphology and this caused cline as scientists began more boldly to question its assump-
problems when its assumptions could not be sustained by tions. A 1939 symposium on Walther Penck’s contribution
contrary evidence. Research in the Davisian mold sought to to geomorphology provided a forum for contrasting the
identify landforms in various stages of development toward Davisian and Penckian systems. Ever Davis’ champion, John-
the peneplain and, by extension, to explain polycyclic land- son viewed ‘‘Penck’s conception that slope profiles are convex,
scapes formed by successive erosion cycles, and polygenetic plane, or concave according to the circumstances of the up-
landscapes shaped by erosion cycles responding to changing lifting action, [as] one of the most fantastic errors ever intro-
climates (Orme, 2007c). In short, to believe in the model was duced into geomorphology’’ (Johnson, 1940: 231). John
to see it expressed in the landscape. Imbued with proselytizing Leighly (1895–1986), however, critiqued the Davisian model
zeal, Davis’ followers became ever more extravagant in their as follows:
claims. At regional scales, Powell (1896) invoked the pene-
plain concept for the Piedmont and, despite evidence for re- Davis’s great mistake was the assumption that we knew the pro-
cent crustal deformation in California, Fairbanks (1904) cesses involved in the development of landforms. We don’t; and
identified a Pliocene peneplain from accordant summits in the until we do we shall be ignorant of the general course of their
development. In his eagerness to set up a general system, Davis
Coast Ranges and a Pleistocene peneplain in the Salinas River
jumped over the preliminary, necessarily painfully slow study of
valley. Hickok (1933) identified eighteen partial erosion cycles processes, and so left his system with an inadequate foundation.
in Pennsylvania and Fenneman (1931, 1938) identified pe- (Leighly, 1940: 225)
neplains across the United States. The model also found favor
in New Zealand (Cotton, 1921), France (Baulig, 1928; de Kirk Bryan (1888–1950) harshly opined that ‘‘The impact
Martonne, 1929; Birot, 1960), Britain (Wooldridge and Lin- of the radical doctrines of Walther Penck (1924) on the
ton, 1939), and Australia (Hills, 1940). American school of geomorphology has all the effect of a cold
The Davisian cause was aided by texts that presented the shower on a complaisant reveler y Slightly bemused by long,
cycle of erosion in coherent, seemingly logical, and illustrated though mild intoxication on the limpid prose of Davis’s
narratives that appealed to students (e.g., Powell, 1896; remarkable essays’’ (Bryan, 1940: 254).
Gilbert and Brigham, 1902). After Davis’ death in 1934, in- The Davisian model declined for reasons that, by the mid-
fluential texts persisted with his message: in North America twentieth century, were moving geomorphology along differ-
(Lobeck, 1939; Worcester, 1939; von Engeln, 1942; Thorn- ent paths. First, there developed a growing awareness of
bury, 1954, 1969) and elsewhere (Wooldridge and Morgan, Earth’s crustal mobility that could not sustain notions of ini-
1937; Machatschek, 1969). Others remained ambivalent tial rapid uplift, followed by prolonged structural quiescence.
(Salisbury, 1908; Chamberlin and Salisbury, 1909; Tarr and Davis (1905a) had recognized this problem but felt that more
Martin, 1914). Rollin Salisbury (1858–1922), who had an gradual uplift accompanied by denudation could be accom-
uneasy relationship with Davis, discussed the youth, maturity, modated as needs arose (they rarely did!). Second, field
and old age of river valleys but avoided the term peneplain in measurements began to challenge the cycle’s basic tenets of
favor of base-leveled surface. youth, maturity, and old age based on assumed linear re-
The Davisian cycle of erosion was received less favorably sponses of form to nonlinear processes. Third, the belief that
in central Europe, where it was formally introduced through prolonged denudation could produce a peneplain was ques-
Davis’ lectures to the University of Berlin in 1912 (Davis, tioned by emerging temporal reality. Holmes, with strong
1912). Imbued with strong structural traditions, such credentials in radiometric dating, addressed the vexing ques-
worthies as Alfred Hettner (1859–1941), Johannes Walther tion as follows:
(1860–1937), Siegfried Passarge (1866–1958), and Davis’
erstwhile friend Albrecht Penck (1858–1945) all opposed the
A million years or so may suffice to bring comparatively small
Davisian model because it fell afoul of their understanding of rivers, like those of Britain, well into the stage of old age, but the
structure and process (Walther, 1900; Passarge, 1904, 1919; great rivers of high Asia may still be far from completing their
Hettner, 1921). It was not helped by Davis’ scathing review of prodigious task in a hundred million years (Holmes, 1944, p. 186).
Passarge’s generic geomorphology (1919) ‘‘from which all the
refreshing juice of explanation has been squeezed out’’ (Davis, Any lengthy timeframe would raise serious questions about
1919: 272). crustal stability.
Ultimately, the Davisian cycle failed in a spatial context
because it oversimplified interactions between structure, pro-
cess, and form (Orme, 2007c, 2011). It failed in a temporal
1.12.4.4 The Descent of the Davisian Cycle of Erosion,
context because it sought to extend the geologic record by
1930–1960
reference to lost, buried, or fragmentary evidence. In Britain,
The model’s descent was retarded by the conservatism of for example, the onshore stratigraphic record from the deep
aging scholars but hastened by the impatience of youth. Some past mostly ends with the withdrawal of Cretaceous seas, such
had never accepted the concept, but their critiques passed that the mode of Cenozoic denudation is largely a matter of
unheeded during the clamor to espouse a supposed ideal. speculation. Such a landscape offers fertile ground for hy-
When Davis died, one eulogy claimed that ‘‘The concept of the potheses, but not for testing them. This problem is exacer-
‘cycle of erosion’ y has stood perhaps as wide and critical bated where ancient cratons have been long denuded but
examination as any generalization in science’’ (Bowman, where rock waste produced under changing climates has been
consumed and recycled by surface and crustal processes.

Under those circumstances, inferring a mode of planation
becomes a matter of faith rather than substance.
For geomorphology in the 1950s, some still believed that
‘‘W.M. Davis established its core of doctrine and laid down its
methods of work’’ (Wooldridge, 1951: 167), but for others
peneplain hunting had lost popularity. By 1963, Richard
Chorley (1927–2002) could opine that ‘‘geomorphology in
the half century after 1890 developed by in-breeding into a
highly stylized discipline wherein the keen edge of research
was blunted’’ (Chorley, 1965: 32). Such were the perceptions
across the generation gap. Collectively, the issues outlined
above sounded the death knell for the Davisian model: ‘the
wheels fell off Davis’s cycle’ (Oldroyd, 2006: 77).
1.12.4.5 Alternative Planation Cycles during the Davisian

Hegemony
Much that has been said for the ‘normal’ cycle of erosion also
applies to variants on the Davisian scheme. Cycles involving
panplanation, eolation, glacial planation, and cryoplanation Figure 22 Walther Penck (1888–1923), whose denudation model
were always going to be regarded with skepticism because related slope form to uplift rates. Sketch by Steve Barker in von
there was insufficient time for these processes to promote Engeln’s Geomorphology, 1942; Macmillan.
planation on a regional, let alone continental scale, before
uplift or climate change intervened. Furthermore, Johnson’s
Figures 13 and 22). The debates generated more heat than
shoreline cycle was restricted to smoothing coastal outlines,
light, which was unfortunate because this detracted from
after which subaerial denudation became dominant, and the
Penck’s intelligent, but sometimes bizarre, reasoning.
so-called karst cycle (Sanders, 1921) ended when carbonate
Stimulated by field observations in the Alps and Andes,
rocks were removed rather than in landscape planation.
Penck believed that crustal mobility should be an integral part
Of other alternatives, pediplanation gained traction be-
of any cyclic theory involving river incision, slope develop-
cause it engaged visible pediments and scarp retreat rather than
ment, and planation, although he rejected notions of con-
less tangible downwearing of slopes. It also gained from Lester
tinental drift then emerging in central Europe (Wegener,
King’s persuasive belief in pediplanation cycles across former
1915). In his model, convex slopes would develop when uplift
Gondwana but in reality had problems similar to peneplana-
rates exceeded denudation rates; concave slopes would
tion (Figure 21(A2)). Cycles of etchplanation (Figure 21(A3))
occur when denudation exceeded uplift; and straight slopes
and marine planation survived because they involved forms
would develop when uplift and denudation were balanced
observable at the surface and in stratigraphic unconformities,
(Figure 21(B1)). Once established, slope form would persist
and processes that fit more readily into reappraisals of crustal
as long as the uplift:denudation ratio was maintained. Stepped
mobility, climate change, isostasy, and eustasy.
terrain would reflect intermittent or variable rates of uplift.
These aspects of Penck’s model did not imply cyclicity, but a
possible repeatable progression of landforms from an initial
1.12.5 The Quest for Reality surface (Primärrumpf) to a terminal plain (Endrumpf) did.
Linkages between landscape denudation and crustal mo-
Any denudation model that invokes planation and cyclicity bility had been anticipated by his father, Albrecht Penck, who
must face reality checks consistent with geomorphology as had revealed a keen sense of structure, process, and climate
now understood and based on evidence not always available change in his geomorphology (Penck, 1894). He was also an
to earlier scholars. These checks often involve covering bat- astute critic of the Davisian model, reflecting their different
tered models in new clothes (Orme, 2002). approaches to the field. Albrecht Penck reasoned inductively
from the particular to the general, from observed evidence
toward scientific principle. In contrast, Davis reasoned de-
1.12.5.1 The Penckian Model
ductively from a general principle, a hypothetical cycle of
In 1924, a posthumous book by Walther Penck (1888–1923, erosion, toward the particular, involving a search for facts that
Figure 22) sought to explain landscape denudation in re- would validate his model. The father’s views were known to
sponse to the intensity and duration of uplift. To Penck, Davis’ Powell, who, in 1896, explained the relationship between
model was a special case. Many viewed Penck’s work as an uplift and denudation as follows:
attack on Davis, which led to debates on the merits of their
respective schemes. Oscar von Engeln (1880–1964) even As corrasion presses hard upon upheaval, channels are cut more
prefaced his influential book with sketches of Davis ‘the rapidly than the general surface is disintegrated and washed away,
master’ and Penck ‘the challenger’ (von Engeln, 1942, and for this reason the lateral stream gorges and valleys have a
slightly convex profile; but when upheaval ceases, convex profiles

are slowly changed to concave profiles. By this characteristic
geologists often discover important time relations between dia-
strophism and degradation (Powell, 1896: 77).
The armchair debate on the comparative merits of the

Davisian and Penckian systems lasted several decades, more
thoroughly engaged, perhaps surprisingly, in the Anglophone
world than in Germany, where observational traditions and
inductive reasoning long held sway. Walther Penck died in
1923 but his views were defended by his venerable father
until he too died in 1945. Neither model could be proven
but Penck offered a reason to engage crustal mobility with
denudation scenarios. Regrettably, the Penckian model, more
complex but less compelling than the Davisian model, came
Figure 23 The Drakensberg escarpment, reaching 3482 m above
to be ignored.
sea level in southeast Africa, was initiated by early Cretaceous rifting
of Gondwana. It has since retreated from the Indian Ocean in a series
1.12.5.2 Crustal Mobility – Plate Tectonics of structural benches, pediments, and cryogenic terraces. Beyond the
crest, planation surfaces of former Gondwana slope toward the
Except etchplanation, most cyclic planation models never Atlantic Ocean: Courtesy A.R. Orme.
really came to terms with the reality of denudation during
uplift. The latter scenario had been considered but dismissed
amid cyclic notions that episodic orogenies were usually sep- plains inland from the retreating Drakensberg escarpment
arated by prolonged structural quiescence. But by the 1940s, (Figure 23). Similarly, the mid-Cretaceous (B120–90 Ma)
despite earlier abortive attempts to impose continental drift opening of the South Atlantic between Brazil and southwest
on a skeptical academy (Wegener, 1915; du Toit, 1927, 1937), Africa initiated the coastal escarpment of southeast Brazil, up
concepts of crustal mobility were again simmering below the to 2200 m high and 1000 km long in the Serra do Mar,
surface. James Gilluly (1896–1980), among others, suggested fronting tilted and dissected former upland plains, including
that, subject to changing intensity and location, mountain the prerift Paraná volcanics (135–130 Ma), to the west. The
building had occurred more continuously over geologic initial escarpment has since extended westward by erosional
time than previously supposed (Gilluly, 1949). Abandoning retreat of the Santos fault zone, now offshore (Almeida and
older models, the explanation for this began to emerge in the Carneiro, 1998; Orme, 2007a). Similar passive margins pre-
1950s when advances in marine geology, paleomagnetism, serve old planation surfaces, albeit of uncertain origin, in the
and crustal geophysics, combined with earlier circumstantial Appalachian Piedmont, Labrador, and Australia. Submerged
evidence for continental mobility, paved the way for the fragments of former continental surfaces also survive offshore,
plate-tectonic revolution of the 1960s. As evidence accumu- notably in the Malvinas and São Paulo plateaus off eastern
lated for more or less continuous crustal generation and South America.
sea-floor spreading, for orogenesis at collisional margins, and Active convergent margins typically raise mountains from
for crustal consumption through subduction (e.g., Dietz, the subduction of oceanic plates beneath continents, the col-
1961; Hess, 1962), the structural premise of prolonged surface lision of continental plates, the accretion of oceanic terranes,
planation in its simplest form became, at best, a special and associated magmatic activity. Landscapes become so de-
case, occurring perhaps within continental interiors that had formed and dislocated that drainage systems are rearranged
escaped internal tectonic disruption and base-level changes. and denudation processes reset. Existing planation surfaces,
At worst, the premise of continental-scale planation was if any, rarely survive intact, although they may be buried by
untenable, especially when the isostatic implications of pro- waste shed from rising mountains, to be exhumed later. For
longed denudation were later added to the equation. example, the Andean orogeny began around 80 Ma and con-
A primary expression of the plate-tectonic paradigm is the tinues today. In the process, the Altiplano (Figure 24), which
distinction between passive margins, where plates rift apart was formerly a lowland thinly mantled by sediment from
and diverge from one another, and active margins, where Brazilian cratons, was deformed and elevated to B4000 m
plates converge with or shear past one another. The distinction above sea level, with local basins receiving up to 10 000 m of
is relative. Passive margins are more likely to preserve rem- Cenozoic continental deposits (Horton et al., 2001). Thus,
nants of former planation surfaces because, as continents extensive planation surfaces rarely survive in active orogens,
raft away from volcanic spreading centers, severe deformation but exhumed features and undeformed fragments occur lo-
is rare. Nevertheless, such margins will probably be raised by cally, even regionally with suitable rock strength and structure
magmatism and dislocated by crustal extension prior to and (e.g., Pacaraima Plateau, Colorado Plateau). And, of course,
during rifting, as in the present east African rift system, and active margins commonly exhibit the most compelling evi-
suffer postrift flexuring and transverse faulting in response to dence for marginal marine planation, notably in the flights of
differential stress release, as across the present Red Sea rift. marine terraces and raised reefs occurring in New Guinea and
Thus did the early Cretaceous (B140–120 Ma) rifting and the Californias, which in turn offer measures of neotectonic
flexuring of southeast Africa preserve relatively flat upland uplift (Bloom et al., 1974; Orme, 1998, Figure 25).
British regime theorists in India, and Alfred Philippson

(1864–1953), Gaston de la Noë (1836–1902), Emmanuel
de Margerie (1862–1953), and Albrecht Penck in Europe
(Philippson, 1886; de la Noë and de Margerie, 1888; Penck,
1894). Davis had borrowed Gilbert’s concept of grade, for
stream channels and slopes where erosion and deposition
are balanced, but this never sat easily in his model. Field and
experimental research now revealed more clearly that de-
nudation was a nonlinear process involving dynamic equi-
librium, acceleration, deceleration, uncertain rock resistance,
and variable debris production and removal (Gilbert, 1914;
Leighly, 1934; Hjulstrom, 1935; Rubey, 1938; Bagnold, 1941).
During the Davisian hegemony, such details were largely
ignored by broad-brush proponents of planation cycles.
From 1945 onward, geomorphology advanced on two
Figure 24 The Altiplano-Puna plateau of the central Andes, now fronts. First, based on concepts promoted by Robert Horton
4000 m above sea level, was lowland around 60 Ma, fed by fluvial (1875–1945) and Arthur Strahler (1918–2002), attempts
sediment from the Brazilian uplands to the east. It was then raised by were made to quantify slope forms and drainage networks
compression linked with Nazca plate subduction into the offshore
and to derive relevant statistical ‘laws’ (Horton, 1945;
Peru-Chile trench. The plateau now overlies B10 000 m of Cenozoic
Strahler, 1950, 1954). This approach was not new: work by
continental deposits, a measure of the massive denudation of the
flanking 6500-m high cordilleras and tectonic subsidence, but not of
James Keill (1673–1719) on arterial networks in the human
planation: Courtesy California Geographical Survey. body had influenced physician Hutton’s view of river networks
(Woldenberg, 1997). But it did redirect geomorphology
toward quantitative explorations of landscape geometry
essential for understanding denudation.
Second, scholars in the Gilbertian mode began exploring
the quantitative relations between form and process (Leopold
and Maddock, 1953), and the magnitude and frequency of
geomorphic processes (Wolman and Miller, 1960). John Hack
(1913–94) challenged Davisian peneplanation by invoking
Gilbert’s concept of dynamic equilibrium within a systems
framework. He suggested that, once landforms become ad-
justed to available energy and rock properties, continued
downwasting would occur at similar rates such that differences
in form reflect spatial variations between force and resistance
rather than evolution through time and changes of base level
(Hack, 1960). Others stated simply that the accordance of
summit levels, the basis for so many inferred peneplains, was
Figure 25 A flight of 13 fossiliferous marine terraces shows that primarily an expression of rocks with similar resistance to
the Palos Verdes peninsula, California, has emerged from beneath erosion (Flint, 1963).
sea level to a crest elevation of B450 m over the past 2 Ma. Such The coup de grace was applied to planation theorists by
dated terraces offer measures of tectonic uplift rates: Courtesy the publication in 1964 of Fluvial Processes in Geomorphology
Spence Collection, UCLA. by Luna Bergere Leopold (1915–2006, Figure 26), Gordon
Wolman (1924–2010), and John Miller (1923–61). Except
pediments, the authors paid scant attention to planation
Cyclicity was also invoked during the plate-tectonic revo- concepts and ignored etchplanation. They focused instead on
lution when Tuzo Wilson (1908–93) suggested that ocean linking quantifiable landforms to measurable precipitation–
basins open and close over a supercontinental cycle of infiltration–runoff processes, which they viewed as in-
300–500 million years (Wilson, 1966). These ‘Wilson cycles’ dependent of stage. While acknowledging Davis’ formulation
are difficult to substantiate for the deep past and in any case of the peneplain concept, they concluded that:
have little relevance to planation cycles inferred since the
breakup of Pangea.
No large surfaces fitting this description are found at the earth’s
surface today y [and] that the existence at a time in the geologic
past of an erosion surface of low relief near base level is an his-
1.12.5.3 Process and Form Revisited torical condition which must be proved; one cannot be inferred
simply from an accordance of summits (Leopold et al., 1964: 500).
While Davis and others were deductively justifying theoretical
planation models, others were inductively explaining land-
forms from field and experimental observations that com- Some sought a compromise by distinguishing denudation
bined fluid dynamics with equilibrium concepts. Early work in terms of cyclic (long), graded (intermediate), and steady
in this regard had been led by Gilbert (1877) in the U.S., (short) time intervals (Schumm and Lichty, 1965). Others
enhance the explanation of substance. Under these circum-

stances, studies of denudation, planation, and cyclicity lan-
guished. A glimmer of hope appeared when Stanley Schumm
(1927–2011) defined the role of extrinsic and intrinsic
thresholds in geomorphic systems whereby ‘‘abrupt changes
may occur during landscape evolution, as threshold values of
stress are exceeded’’ (Schumm, 1977: 6). This scheme offered a
fresh potential for understanding episodic changes in land-
form development.
1.12.5.4 Crustal Instability – Denudation and Isostasy

Although Davis’ model was much influenced by Dutton’s
‘great denudation’ of the Colorado Plateau, Davis largely
ignored isostasy, a term coined by Dutton ‘‘to express
that condition of the terrestrial surface which would follow
from the flotation of the crust upon a liquid or highly
plastic substratum’’ (Dutton, 1882c: 283). Earth’s gravity
anomalies and crustal disequilibrium had been discussed
Figure 26 Luna Bergere Leopold (1915–2006) was an influential
scholar who helped to redefine denudation and planation concepts in
earlier (e.g., Herschel, 1837) and what would later be termed
the later twentieth century. Courtesy of the U.S. Geological Survey. glacio-isostasy had been recognized (Jamieson, 1865), but
it was Dutton who named isostasy, although he did not
fully understand it and applied it to the wrong problem
found no justification for Davisian peneplains (Steven, (Orme, 2007b).
1968). While the concept of isostasy was soon accepted by geo-
For pediments, Leopold and his colleagues (1964) tested desists and geophysicists, and by those who recognized crustal
their evidence from the American West against the ideas loading by Pleistocene ice sheets and large lakes (e.g., Gilbert,
of McGee (1897), Penck (1924), Davis (1938), and Bryan 1890; Bell, 1896), most scientists were long reluctant to em-
(1940). They concluded that, although form and process brace isostasy for denudation, based on the mathematical
might vary, pediments could develop across all rock types and massaging of crustal assumptions that could not be proven at
climatic regions, thus supporting Hack’s (1960) recognition of the time. However, Dutton had specifically suggested that the
pediments in the humid Appalachians and King’s (1953) uplift and displacement of the Colorado Plateau were ‘‘some
global inferences on pediplanation. of the consequences of the great denudation’’ (Dutton, 1882a:
The quantitative revolution of 1945–65 led research in 69). In short, whereas Davis’ model was predicated on the
geomorphology along practical paths that diverged markedly assumption that uplift leads to denudation, Dutton’s ‘great
from earlier approaches. Whereas the latter were generally denudation’ could cause uplift by releasing gravitational
based deductively on preconceived notions requiring little loading of Earth’s crust (Orme, 2007a). But isostatic adjust-
measurement, investigations now involved rigorous experi- ments of this nature were an unwelcome complication to the
mental designs, improved field and laboratory technologies, progress of Davisian peneplanation and likely to invalidate
accurate measurements, and descriptive and analytical stat- the cycle. Such a complication was best ignored, and that is
istics. Initially, all this was to the good, provided the research what Davis did: he rejected the concept of isostasy because it
questions were well conceived and the results were carefully was inconsistent with the evidence for peneplanation (Davis,
interpreted. As time passed, however, it became apparent that 1910)! Perhaps he may be excused because in his time the
studies of process and form were revealing more and more relevant mechanics and geophysics were poorly understood,
about less and less, and that many projects were focusing on nor did he have the range of investigative techniques available
discrete portions of a practical problem with little attempt to to later scholars. Had he involved isostasy, his model would
formulate new theory (Orme, 2007c, 2011). have become more realistic, but more complex and less in-
The quantitative revolution led to something of a theore- tuitively attractive.
tical hiatus for studies of landform evolution. As Kuhn (1970) As early as 1905, Reginald Daly (1871–1957), Davis’
has emphasized, ‘‘to reject one paradigm without simul- eventual successor at Harvard, had invoked isostatic response
taneously substituting another is to reject science itself’’ to both uplift and denudation in order to explain accordant
(Kuhn, 1970: 78–79). Even the attempt to recast geomorph- summits (Daly, 1905), but had been ignored. Later, Richard
ology within a systems context, borrowed from classical Joel Russell (1895–1971) complained that peneplain en-
mechanics (Strahler, 1950, 1980; Chorley, 1962; Chorley and thusiasts commonly disregarded the effects of isostatic com-
Kennedy, 1971), was in reality a functional means of viewing, pensation, and Stanley Schumm (1927–2011) suggested that
organizing, and analyzing data rather than a new paradigm. episodic isostatic adjustments to denudation could be a cause
Those aroused by a systems approach might speak confidently of rejuvenation (Russell, 1958; Schumm, 1963). However,
of open and closed systems, of positive and negative feed- these were exceptions rather than the rule. Even more recently,
backs, and so forth, but changes in name did not necessarily most theoretical texts have continued to focus on relations
between tectonic uplift and denudation, rather than on These issues present a continuing puzzle that engages de-
interactions between denudation and isostasy. nudation with crustal behavior for which the field evidence is
In its modern form, isostasy has recently reemerged as a generally ambiguous.
concept fundamental to the explanation of Earth’s surface Figure 27 illustrates this puzzle. The South Hams plateau is
relief. Notably, Molnar and England (1990) distinguished underlain by Devonian marine rocks (B410–360 Ma) that
between surface uplift, which reflects tectonic forcing, and were deformed, variably metamorphosed, and uplifted by the
rock uplift, which combines tectonic forcing with isostatic Variscan orogeny (B360–300 Ma), toward the close of which
rebound driven by denudation (Figure 21(B2)). From survey the Dartmoor granite pluton was intruded. Initial denudation
data and crustal properties, Gregory-Wodzicki (2000) sug- of Pangea’s Variscan mountains under subtropical, semi-arid,
gested that uplift of the dissected northern Andes, which rose fluvial, and aeolian conditions led to deposition of Permian
at 3 m ka1 during the Pliocene, has involved both tectonic ‘red beds’ (B300–250 Ma), patches of which survive locally.
forcing and denudation-driven isostatic rebound. In contrast, Denudation continued for B200 million years, until the
tectonic uplift has raised the Altiplano into an arid zone, landscape was submerged beneath late Cretaceous chalk
where, apart from wind action, dissection is limited and seas (B90–70 Ma). Withdrawal of these seas led to early
support for denudation-driven isostasy is less compelling. Cenozoic denudation under warm, seasonally humid, sub-
Beyond active orogens, planation surfaces occurring along tropical conditions, shown nearby by Paleogene flint gravels
passive continental margins should also be viewed in the (derived by denudation of the former chalk cover), duricrust
context of isostasy. Coastal strandflats produced, at least in fragments (silcrete, ferricrete), kaolinitic clay, other granitic
part by late Pleistocene glacio-isostatic fluctuations, have long and Paleozoic rock waste, and lignite, and continued beyond
been known from northern North Atlantic shores. Passive- the outer ripples of the Alpine orogeny into Neogene time.
margin uplift around this region may have led to late Ceno- The Dartmoor granite was certainly exposed by Oligocene
zoic glaciation (Eyles, 1996). But what of the broader effects of time and, owing to its superior resistance, came to lie higher
crustal isostasy driven by massive denudation? The withdrawal than the South Hams plateau. The plateau may have been
from high Cretaceous sea levels and the subsequent removal invaded by Pliocene and Pleistocene seas, suggested by de-
of marine sediment from the region’s continents must surely posits farther west and little dissected planar surfaces to the
have had isostatic implications, regardless of other tectonic south and west. It then experienced cryoplanation during
and eustatic forces. Uplift of the sub-Cretaceous, even sub- Pleistocene cold stages, and fluvial dissection in response to
Jurassic, sea floor may have exhumed Pangean landscapes, lowering Pleistocene base levels. The present coast formed
trimming them as seas withdrew and exposing them to from the Flandrian transgression that culminated around 5 ka.
renewed subaerial denudation by pediments and etching. The South Hams plateau thus reflects mainly: (1) prolonged
Isostatic responses of Earth’s crust to denudation generate Cenozoic subaerial denudation and, in lesser degrees: (2) ex-
many questions: What is the threshold beyond which de- humation of sub-Permian and (3) sub-Cretaceous surfaces;
nudation triggers crustal reaction? Is this reaction spatially and (4) late Cenozoic marine planation. Likewise, etching and
contiguous or disjointed? What is the lag time before crustal pediplanation occurred against a background of continuing
responses begin? Is this response continuous or episodic? crustal motion along the northeast Atlantic margin, isostatic
Crustal responses become much more difficult to decipher adjustments to regional post-Variscan tectonism, sedimen-
when tectonic and eustatic movements occur while isostatic tation, and denudation, and eustatic responses to changing
adjustments to denudation are in progress (Orme, 2007a). ocean-basin capacity and water volume.
South Hams Plateau Dartmoor

160−200 m rising to 621 m
(Devonian slate, grit, metavolcanic rocks) (Variscan granite)
Ugborough
Torrdown Marginal Beacon Brent Hill
Avon Valley South Brent Basin benches 311 m
170 m 376 m
220−250 m (Diabase)
Figure 27 Southern Dartmoor and the South Hams plateau illustrate the puzzle presented by various denudation and planation scenarios,
discussed in the text. Field sketch by A.R. Orme.
1.12.6 Conclusion model and its derivatives are not the answer. But mass wasting,
etching, rivers, pediments, and shore platforms can initiate
Denudation is fundamental to geomorphology, whether it planation, and partial planation can be repeated. Whether
involves mass wasting and erosion over the short term or cyclic or not, planation surfaces cutting across a variety of
surface reduction over the longer term. Sedimentation is its rocks certainly exist; they invite speculation and explanation
mirror image. Empirical studies of contemporary denudation appropriate to the evidence.
and sedimentation reveal much about the nature and rate of Whatever the eventual answer, these questions raise a
specific processes shaping the Earth’s surface, but encounter fundamental issue for geomorphology, namely the extent to
problems when extrapolated over the longer term, in essence which research can combine an understanding of extant
because the present is rarely a key to the past. landforms and sediment into explanations of Earth’s surface
Planation is a more troublesome concept because it as- involving crustal and mantle forces, which generate uplift,
sumes that denudation continues until continents are reduced subsidence, and mass transfers at depth, and climate-induced
either to a marine plain or to a subaerial surface just above forces responsible for denudation, sedimentation, and mass
base level. In either case, planation would need time far be- transfers of rock waste across the surface. Denudation, pla-
yond the span of human enquiry. Inevitably, this leads to the nation, and cyclicity are now better understood, but more
formulation of hypothetical models that extend into the deep evidence, better chronologies, and enhanced models are nee-
past, beyond available measures of shore-platform retreat and ded in order to fit existing knowledge to elusive reality.
river planation obtained over brief time. Davis ‘solved’ this
problem by assuming that time could be defined by con-
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Biographical Sketch
Antony R. Orme (PhD, University of Birmingham, England, 1961) is Emeritus Professor of Geography in the
University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). Raised in Devon, England, his career began at University College,
Dublin (1960–68), before joining UCLA in 1968.
His research interests have embraced many aspects of geomorphology (coasts, rivers, deserts, mass movement)
and Cenozoic studies (sea-level change, pluvial lakes, neotectonism, isostasy), as well as the history and para-
digms of the Earth sciences, and issues of coastal and watershed planning and management. He has worked
extensively in western North America, the Caribbean, Africa, the Middle East, Britain, and Ireland. His research
has been supported by the U.S Navy Office of Naval Research, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (Coastal Engineering
Research Center, Waterways Experiment Station, Cold Regions Research & Engineering Laboratory), U.S. Air Force,
U.S. Department of Energy, U.S. Department of State (Agency for International Development), U.S. Department
of the Interior (National Park Service), the National Science Foundation, and various regional, state and city
agencies, and several national governments.
His teaching interests involve all the above fields, and he has also been active in university administration. He
has served as editor or as editorial board member of numerous journals, including Physical Geography, which he
founded and served as Editor-in-Chief from 1980 to 2010. Recent awards include the Founders’ Medal of the
British Society for Geomorphology (BGRS, 2000), and the Mel Marcus Distinguished Career Award of the As-
sociation of American Geographers (2002).
He has authored or edited several books and monographs, including Ireland (1970), Coasts under Stress
(1982), Lake Thompson: A Desiccating Late Quaternary Lake System (2004). With Andrew Goudie (Oxford), he
developed and edited advanced texts in the Oxford Regional Environments series; and contributed several
chapters to the physical geographies of Africa (1996), North America (2002), and South America (2007). His
recent research papers address river-mouth and beach morphodynamnics, multidecadal coastal changes, Pleis-
tocene and Holocene pluvial lakes, coastal dunes, sea-level fluctuations, geomorphic responses to interactive
tectonic and climate forcing, climate change issues, Clarence Dutton and questions of isostasy, and shifting
paradigms in geomorphology.

Denudation, Planation, and Cyclicity: Myths, Models, and Reality

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Denudation, Planation, and Cyclicity: Myths, Models, and Reality

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1.

12 Denudation, Planation, and Cyclicity: Myths, Models, and Reality

1.12.1 Introduction 209

Glossary Climate change A significant change in climate, ideally

Treatise on Geomorphology, Volume 1 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-374739-6.00012-9 205

Year 1700 1800 1900 2000

Chamberlin A. Penck and Brückner

Adhémar Croll Milankovitch Hays

Keill Jackson Gravelius Horton Strahler

Gilbert McGee King

Airy Dutton Joly

Phases Acceptance of concept

Some significant benchmarks

Figure 2 Denudation on Santa Cruz Island, California, a warm,

presented a concept of Earth history based on observable

But if the succession of worlds is established in the system of na-

Wateryfrom the smallest rill to the greatest riveryattacks what-

In France, stimulated by Desmarest and du Buat, Jean-

Russel Wallace (1823–1913). What was less certain was the

1.12.3 Planation: A Prolonged Debate, 1830–1960

As the concept of gradual denudation over time took hold,

Somewhat surprisingly, despite centuries of observation on the

evidence would have helped the cause. Nevertheless, in an

1856), and William Phipps Blake (1826–1910), although

Figure 12 The Grand Canyon of the Colorado, evidence of the great

Figure 14 W.J. McGee (1853–1912) defined pediments and

into a pediplain. This concept drew in part on evidence

1.12.3.2.5 Glacial planation

Figure 17 The scarp and tread of a modern cryoplanation terrace,

Figure 18 Antrim Plateau, Ireland. The red bed is Fe-rich laterite

stripping of this rotted rock waste by streams in response

Initial surface Subsequent erosion

Youth Maturity Old age

A2. Pediplanation (after L.C. King)

A3. Etchplanation (after E. Wayland, J. Büdel)

Convex Straight concave

B1. Variable uplift-slope response model (after W. Penck)

original base level

consumed and recycled by surface and crustal processes.

1.12.4.5 Alternative Planation Cycles during the Davisian

slightly convex profile; but when upheaval ceases, convex profiles

The armchair debate on the comparative merits of the

British regime theorists in India, and Alfred Philippson

enhance the explanation of substance. Under these circum-

1.12.5.4 Crustal Instability – Denudation and Isostasy

South Hams Plateau Dartmoor

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