ABSTRACT
The influence of structure on geomorphology is profound. Not only are the great features in the morphology of the globe - mountain chains, plateaux, rift valleys, continental margins, and the like — predominantly of structural origin and formed by folding, faulting, or warping, but many of the minutiae of land forms, the shape of hills or mountains, and the trends and patterns of streams, are controlled by structure through the action of agents of weathering and erosion on complex rock masses. As the zoologist's scalpel dissects the parts of an animal, so do the physiographic agents probe and dissect the earth. This is a fundamental tenet of physiographic lore, but has been strangely neglected as a method of study by which inferences may be drawn from geomorphology as to geological structure. The topic has recently received some attention as structural geomorphology, but morphotectonics is preferred as having a wider connotation. 1
