What is Geomorphology?

Geomorphology is a part of the geology that studies the relief, which is the combination of the geographic accidents that we can see on the Earth surface. The landscape is how the relief looks like, the surface aspect.

This is a dynamic element, that is constantly changing as a result of the uninterrupted intervention of the processes that form (internal geological processes) and model (external processes) the relief.

Geomorphology studies the relief from the shape point of view (geometry). Over the years, there have been many different theories and ideas about how the relief was formed:

• Catastrophism: This theory proposes that the Earth has been affected in the past by sudden violent events when the big chains have been formed. These kind of changes weren´t continous (for example, the universal deluge). George Cuvier, a French naturalist and zoologist, became the most influential proponent of Catastrophism in geology in the early years of  the 19th century.
• Gradualism: This theory contrasts the catastrophism. It holds that the changes are the result of slow and continous processes. We should be able to see this phenomenons nowadays since they must occur gradually. This theory was later included into Charles Lyell´s theory.

Next entries will deal with the different aspects related to the agents and processes that provoke these changes.