ON A MORPHOSTRUCTURAL ANALYSIS USED FOR GEOMORPHOLOGICAL SURVEYING OF A MOUNTAIN RELIEF

Abstract

The article deals with one of the methods of a morphostructural analysis used for geomorphological surveying of mountain regions. The authors proceed from the following widespread concepts: 1) block tectonics is the principal geomorphic agent in mountain areas; 2) the river system forms in breaks and cleavage disturbances, which serve as «lines of least resistence» for a selective erosion. The technique is based on the analysis of topographic maps followed by a compilation of the relief’s principal morphological and morphometric indices. Analysing topographic and thematic maps the authors detected breaks and cleavage disturbances of different orders and then compiled a map of block: structural forms. The technique is simple and may be used for mountain regions with, great differences of altitudes. For other regions, both mountain and plain (all the more for the plain ones), more effective will, probably, be the methods suggested by V. F. Filosofov, which have afterwards been revised by A. A. Lukashov and Yu. G. Simonov, by L. B. Aristarkhova, N. G. Shubina and others, in accordance with the specificity of areas where they undertook investigations.