ABSTRACT
The word geomorphology is derived from three Greek words: γεω (the Earth), µορφη (form), and λογος (discourse). Geomorphology is therefore ‘a discourse on Earth forms’. It is the study of Earth’s physical land-surface features, its landforms – rivers, hills, plains, beaches, sand dunes, and myriad others. Some workers include submarine landforms within the scope of geomorphology. And some would add the landforms of other terrestrial-type planets and satellites in the Solar System – Mars, the Moon, Venus, and so on. Geomorphology was first used as a term to describe the morphology of the Earth’s surface in the 1870s and 1880s (e.g. de Margerie 1886, 315). It was originally defined as ‘the genetic
study of topographic forms’ (McGee 1888, 547), and was used in popular parlance by 1896.
