Abandoned industrial sites and demolished plants and factories (e.g. sugar, glass, automotive, chemical) were used to examine the processes of morpholitogenesis. Modified landscape including industrial objects, infrastructure and equipment in the post-industrial time experiencing various stages of destruction, similar to natural phases of morpholithogenesis. The process includes three main phases and 11 sub-phases. During the first phase man-made industrial landscape remains unchanged. The second phase is characterized by artificial and natural destruction of the surface technogenic layer including industrial objects, their transformation into technoliths, and badland formation. During the third phase a new landscape is being formed by processes of morpho- and lithogenesis, soil development, and secondary floral succession. Each phase is subdivided into sub-phases based on detailed examination of pattern of destruction and new landscape formation.

Examples of post-technogenic relief of former sugar plant, formed during the transformation cycle of the former industrial landscapes, are given.

Based on our own observations, literature and stock sources, we have created a database that includes primary limnological, geophysical, geological, analytical and biological data for the Lake Ladoga basin. The database is a set of attribute tables with coordinate reference points, which allows to make the necessary selections and build sets of maps using various parameters. As the main data storage cell, a 1 × 1 km polygon is selected, which corresponds to the topographic map unit in a rectangular coordinate system. The author’s version of the digital bathymetric model of Lake Ladoga is compiled. On the basis of the bathymetric model and other materials from the database, a working scheme of the landscapes of Lake Ladoga and a scheme of landscape zoning are constructed. Detailed bathymetric measurements, a detailed study of the composition of the bottom sediments and landscape facies, the composition and distribution of biota on the reference cells for different types of landscapes were carried out. The information obtained during detailed studies of the reference cell can be extrapolated to the entire area of distribution of this type of landscape, taking into account the features of the mesorelief.

The article is devoted to radar interferometry as a tool for the work of a geomorphologist engaged in modern landform processes. Differential radar interferometry (DInSAR) is based on radar imaging of the Earth’s surface from spacecraft, whose orbital trajectory is recorded with high accuracy. This makes possible, by measuring the phase difference of the reflected radio signal over the same parts of the Earth’s surface at a fixed time interval, to determine the values of terrain displacements along the line of sight of the satellite sensor, vertical or horizontal lines. This method, despite the fact that it has significant limitations, allows almost realtime tracking of the terrain deformations caused by various geomorphological processes. Traditional applications of InSAR are monitoring of technogenic subsidence or bedding of soil, seimogenic and volcanogenic movements of the surface, landslides and other slope processes, relief cryogenic transformation. At the limit, this method by using radar images in the C-band (for example, the twin satellites Sentinel-1A and -1B), makes possible to distinguish sub-centimeter vertical movements. In this case, the survey frequency is 1–2 weeks, the covered areas can range from hundreds of square meters to tens of thousands of square kilometers, and the specific registered vertical velocities in various publications vary in the range from the first cm / year to 1 m / event, and sometimes more (in the case of earthquakes or landslides). As an example, the result of calculating the rates of displacements of the Earth’s surface in the interfluve of the Yenisei and Bolshaya Kheta is given – they vary over the area from about –3 to +2 cm in a period of less than 2 weeks in July-August 2019, and are associated with fluvial and thermokarst processes.

The Novosibirsk hydroelectric complex, the largest hydropower project on the Ob River, was built ~60 years ago. It is located 680 km from the confluence of the Biya and Katun rivers and formed a 8 km³ reservoir. The paper considers the riverbed transformation processes followed after the hydroelectric complex construction caused by changes in the hydrological regime and sediment flux. The reservoir regulates daily and seasonal runoff, and intercepts 90% of the suspended sediment flux. The riverbed transformation reflecting daily discharge fluctuations could be detected for 70 km downstream from the dam. The intensive erosion rates up to 12 cm/year were documented along the 8–10 km stretch of the channel near the dam during the period of 20 years due to the influence of daily discharge regulation waves and sediments shortage. The lowering of the riverbed and water levels for 1.8 m is exponential. During the 20-year period, the initial sand deposits of 0.5 mm in size were removed exposing poorly eroded, rocky and coarse-grained soils and significantly decreasing the erosion rates. Down the stream, 10–40 km from the dam, erosion started with a delay of 3–5 years with the rate of less than 3 cm/year. The lowering of the riverbed and water level reached only 1.4 m, and was stabilized ~50 years after the dam construction as the grain size of the riverbed sediments increased by 5–6 times and the water surface gradient decreased. Additional mechanical disturbances; mining of at least 20 million m³ sand and gravel construction materials, dredging the channel which allowed in the 1960s–1970s to increase the navigable depth by 1.0–1.3 m, and other river engineering work also played a significant role in riverbed transformation.

The Chernoozerye low ridge in the Irtysh valley is an eolian structure on pleistocene fluvial terrace sediments. These eolian deposits are fine-grained, well-sorted sands with small portions of silt and clay, including two levels with former top-soils. The fractures of fine sand and large-sized aleurite are the main components. This fraction covers 60 to 80% of the material with an average grain size varying between 0.090 to 0.096. Sand accumulation was subordinate to the formation of the low ridge. The content of fine and medium silts is small in the deposits of the low ridge – from 4.9 to 11.7%, and the total proportion of particles with a diameter of less than 0.01 mm does not reach more than 22%. The eolian sediments in the low ridge’s bottom are approximately 14.9±1.5 thousand years BC (L-Eva 1975); the final phase of active eolian lithogenesis was about 11thousand years BC (L-Eva 1971, 1972). The variability of the granulometric content of rocks in the section reflects the stages of sediment formation. The activation of eolian processes in the gap between 15–10 thousand years ago was happening wavelike and included periods of their weakening 14 thousand years and 11– 10.5 thousand years BC.

Slope debris flows are widespread, despite this, they represent one of the poorly studied forms of material movement, and most cases of mudslides are interpreted as geodynamic processes that are genetically close to slope debris flows (erosion, landslides-flows, scree, etc.). Due to the erroneous identification of exogenous processes, the values of the ejection range, the area affected by the territory, the impact on obstacles and engineering protection structures are significantly underestimated, which often leads to their damage, destruction and inefficiency efficiency. Based on field observations at the sites of mass formation of slope debris flows in the territory of the Magadan region, Sakhalin Island and the Kuril Islands, the causes of the genetic connection of slope debris flows and other water-gravity and fluvial processes were established, the signs of their paragenesis were determined, including the joint nature of the flow, common foci of origin and solid nutrition, common conditions and factors of formation, mutual transformation. Slope debris flows and landslides-flows are considered as the closest geodynamic processes, their differences are revealed: different aggregate state, the nature of the movement of the solid phase in the flow, interaction with the underlying surface and obstacles. The paper describes the difficulties of identification during the reconnaissance survey of the territory of traces of debris flows and the movement of landslides-flows in the slope debris flow basins. The analysis of geobotanical features (the nature of wood damage and defects), interaction with the underlying surface and obstacles, and analysis of the shape and structure of sediments are proposed as the most reliable signs of identification of mudflow cases.

Bifurcated channels represent the highest structural level of channel branching in the large rivers and characterized by two equal channels that flow on the opposite sides of a very wide valley for tens and hundreds of kilometers. They form when the floodplain is 10 times wider than the channel, the entire floodplain is being inundated during flood stage, the branches are located near the sides of the valley, exposure of bedrock banks control discharge distribution between the channels. Their formation is usually accompanied by the development of numerous floodplain channels that provide hydraulic connection between the main branches. In some cases, bifurcated channels occur on small rivers. Typically bifurcated channels occur in the low reach close to the river mouth; or form as a result of stream capture by tributaries that share the same floodplain with the main river; or when river flowing out of the mountains to the plain, etc. There are differences in the development of branches of bifurcated channels, the distribution of morphodynamic types of channels; various riverbank erosion rates. These characteristics depend on the change in their water content, the morphodynamic type of the channel, the location in relation to the bedrock banks, as well as the effect of the distribution of discharge on sediment runoff and its longitudinal changes.

This review paper examines a set of interrelated processes: the mountain uplift, the process of denudation, the changes in the atmospheric CO₂, and the gradual climate cooling in the Cenozoic. The rate of denudation on a geological scale can change quite significantly both in connection with seismotectonic activity and climatic changes. Сlimatic changes, in turn, can be caused by the consequences of seismotectonic activity, which cause changes in the relief of the territory and the rate of denudation. The global climatic regime began to change dramatically ca. 50 million years ago. The mechanism of this most significant climatic change since the beginning of the Cenozoic era 66 million years ago to the present day (the so-called Cenozoic cooling) is still not fully understood. More and more evidence support the provisions of the Raimo-Ruddiman hypothesis, formulated in 1992, on the cause of the Cenozoic cooling. The hypothesis suggests that mountainous relief significant on a global scale causes the intensification of denudation and sequestration of atmospheric CO₂ in the form of carbonate. This, in turn, affects the global climate. Methods and approaches have been significantly advanced recently enabling to infer quantitatively the intensity of individual exogenous processes and the rate of denudation in general. Modern quantitative data of river sediment yields and basin denudation based on 10Be analysis indicates the extent of disintegration of mountainous regions. The contrast in relief is a key parameter that determines the scale of natural (i.e. free of human intervention) denudation. This is reinforced by the significant contribution of mountainous regions, primarily of Alpine orogeny, to global denudation. This work illustrates the general trend of Cenozoic cooling and considers the key elements of the hypothesis formulated by Raymo and Ruddiman, as well as the results of the latest research confirming the impact of relief and denudation rates on climate change.

The problem of decoding the geodynamic features of the manifestation of the latest local horizontal intraplatform mobility of the earth’s crust is poorly studied. It is revealed by the example of the junction of the Baltic shield and the Russian plate. The study is based on the previously proposed by M.G. Leonov possibility that hard crystalline rocks are subject to quasi-plastic deformations. Morphostructural analysis, which compares the geological structure and features of the relief, is used as a methodological approach. Large massifs are distinguished in the crystalline basement of the EEP. Under the influence of regional geodynamic processes, in recent times the Karelian massif of the Baltic Shield has been experiencing horizontal deformations of small amplitude, leading to its compression in the center and extension in the form of ledges on the outskirts. From the southwest, the massif is limited by the Rybinsk fault, which displaces the Central Russian aulacogen by 100 km to the southeast, as a result of which the Rybinsk morphostructural node is formed. The node is a postglacial depression with two straight sides, located above the faults in the basement. According to these the morphostructure can be defined as the neotectonic graben. Graben is located on the continuation of the narrowing edge of the Karelian massif hidden under the sediment cover. It can be associated with the removal of this edge during the general deformation of the massif, which was summarized with the movement of the shield to the plate, occurs due to tectonic processes that reveal the North Atlantic. Thus, the Rybinsk structural unit is an indicator of both the intraplate geodynamics of the Karelian massif and the impact of a wider geodynamic system associated with the disclosure of the North Atlantic and the removal of the shield.

The article reflects on Dr. A.A. Nikonov’s (Doctor of Geological and Mineralogical Sciences) scientific career highlighting his contribution to the development of Paleoseismology. The most important results of Nikonov’s research are in Neotectonics and related to the study of velocities and velocity gradients of modern tectonic movements and active faults. Dr. Nikinov made a significant contribution in advancing the field of Paleoseismology by expanding its tasks, content and developing methodological support for paleogeological, historical and archaeological investigations in Seismology. His research interests extended to platform areas, previously considered as “aseismic” zones, where evidences of strong seismic events were found. In historical seismology Dr. Nikonov incorporated the wide range of sources including written, and folklore evidence of seismic event from preliterate periods. The most valuable result of his investigations is the identification of numerous sources of ancient earthquakes and assessment of their parameters in various regions, including the “aseismic”, where seismic potential was previously underestimated. Evidence of paleo- and historical earthquakes discovered by Nikonov significantly extended the seismic records, increasing instrumental seismic statistics (the basis for seismic hazard assessment) of various regions in Russia and other states. Nikonov had also identified and justified frequent cases of ancient tsunamis along the National sea coasts and lake shores, a serious natural disaster which hazard was poorly recognized.