ABSTRACT
The word geomorphology derives from three Greek words: gew (the Earth), morfh (form), and logo~ (discourse). Geomorphology is therefore ‘a discourse on Earth forms’. The term was coined sometime in the 1870s and 1880s to describe the morphology of the Earth’s surface (e.g. de Margerie 1886, 315), was originally defined as ‘the genetic study of topographic forms’ (McGee 1888, 547), and was used in popular parlance by 1896. Despite the modern acquisition of its name, geomorphology is a venerable discipline (Box 1.1). Today, geomorphology is the study of Earth’s physical land-surface features, its land forms – rivers, hills, plains, beaches, sand dunes, and myriad others. Some workers include submarine landforms within the scope of geo morphology; and some would add the landforms of other terrestrial-type planets and satellites in the Solar System – Mars, the Moon, Venus, and so on.
