Summit accordance

A summit accordance (sometimes also known by the German loan word gipfelflur) exists when hills and mountaintops, and eventually also plateaux, have such a disposition that they form a geometric plane that may be either horizontal or tilted. Summit accordances can be the vestiges of former continuous erosion surfaces that were uplifted and eroded.[1] Other proposed explanations include:[2]

  • the possibility that erosion becomes more effective at height, tearing down mountains that stand out
  • that isostasy regulates the height of individual mountain masses meaning that small mountains might be uplifted and large mountains dragged down
  • that landscape dissection by uniformly spaced streams eventually reach a state in which summits attain similar heights
  • that summit accordance is derivative of structural planes exposed by erosion
The highest of hills in this picture show fairly similar heights making up a summit accordance. Aerial photograph from the Altai region of Russia.

See also

References
  1. Lidmar-Bergström, Karna. "Toppkonstans". Nationalencyklopedin (in Swedish). Cydonia Development. Retrieved June 22, 2015.
  2. Beckinsale, Robert P.; Chorley, Richard J. (2003) [1991]. "Chapter Seven: American Polycyclic Geomorphology". The History of the Study of Landforms. Vol. Three. Taylor & Francis e-Library. pp. 235–236.
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