Morphotectonics

The Vasquez Rock formations, located in the Sierra Pelona Mountains, were formed by tectonic activity along an offshoot of the San Andreas Fault.

Morphotectonics (from Ancient Greek: μορφή, morphḗ, "form";[1] and τεκτονικός, tektonikos, "pertaining to building"[2]), or tectonic geomorphology, is a branch of geomorphology that studies how landforms are formed or affected by tectonic activity.[3] Morphotectonists seek to understand the deep Earth mechanisms behind the creation of tectonic landforms by processes such as crust uplift, subsidence, faulting, or folding.[4]

Morphotectonics relies on cross-disciplinary research, drawing from fields such as geology, seismology, physical geography, climatology, geochronology, and geodesy.[5] This diversity creates a challenge in that successful morphotectonic studies require combining information from specialized, historically unrelated fields of study. Furthermore, this wide range of fields leads to new discoveries in the field potentially coming from unexpected sources, such as paleobotany or stratigraphy. The field of morphotectonics has been increasingly gaining attention since the 1980s.[3]

  1. ^ "morpho- | Origin and meaning of prefix morpho- by Online Etymology Dictionary". www.etymonline.com. Retrieved 2019-09-24.
  2. ^ "tectonic | Origin and meaning of tectonic by Online Etymology Dictionary". www.etymonline.com. Retrieved 2019-09-24.
  3. ^ a b Doornkamp, J. C. (1986). "Geomorphological approaches to the study of neotectonics". Journal of the Geological Society. 143 (2): 335–342. Bibcode:1986JGSoc.143..335D. doi:10.1144/gsjgs.143.2.0335. ISSN 0016-7649.
  4. ^ Gutiérrez, Francisco; Gutiérrez, Mateo (2016). Landforms of the Earth. Basel, Switzerland: Springer International Publishing. ISBN 978-3-319-26947-4. doi:10.1007/978-3-319-26947-4
  5. ^ Burbank, Douglas W. (2012). Tectonic Geomorphology: Second Edition. Anderson, Robert S. Chichester, West Sussex: J. Wiley & Sons. doi:10.1002/9781444345063. ISBN 9781444345032.