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By William B. Bull

Process-oriented climatic fluvial geomorphology is the focus of Geomorphic Responses to Climate Change. This book, originally published in 1991, develops concepts through discussion of climate-induced changes in fluvial-systems of four field areas' traverse and coastal ranges of California, the southern and basin and range province of North America, Israel and the Sinai Peninsula of Egypt and New Zealand. The book emphasizes the importance of lithography and structure. Vegetation and soil-profile development are key topics in all chapters because they greatly influence erosion and deposition.

The basic topics of climate and paleoclimateology, vegetation, soil genesis, and geochronology are discussed in each chapter as essential background and to assess the responses of geomorphic processes to climate change. Descriptions of current climates are compared with paleoclimatic inferences.

The book is written primarily for graduate students and professionals; however, it may also be useful as an undergraduate text because the concepts it presents are essential to many types of geomorphic analysis.

Dr. Bull is an applied geologist educated at Colorado and Stanford University. He taught geomorphology in the Geosciences Department at the University of Arizona for 28 years. He has spent 12 years studying land subsidence with the Water Resources Division of the U. S. Geological Survey.

Reviews
"The extensive and detailed analyses presented in chapters 2 through 5 are testimony to Bull's skills as a field scientist, his powers of observation and interpretation, and his dedication to his trade. The richness and quality of data presented in these pages will be invaluable to posterity." --Geographical Review

"This book contains a number of provocative ideas concerning traditional topics in fluvial geomorphology, and it has many important strengths that revolve around the central theme of fluvial response to climactic change. This is a fine piece of work and will be a valuable reference to students of geomorphology, Quaternary geology, and archaeological geology. For the archaeological geologist, the strength of this book lies in the range of pertinent issues raised, and how it manages to synthesize, in great detail, large bodies of complex data that bear on the variability and complexity of fluvial response to climactic change. In doing so, it provides an excellent example of the holistic, multidisciplinary approach necessary for these types of studies." --Geoarchaeology

Table of Contents

Chapter 1. Conceptual Models For Changing Landscapes.
1.1 Geomorphic Systems
1.2 Variables of Fluvial Systems
1.3 Equilibrium in Fluvial Systems
1.4 Geomorphic Thresholds, Response Times, and Threshold Ratios
1.5 Threshold of Critical Power in Streams
1.6 Nonequilibrium Landforms
1.7 Complex Response
1.8 Genetic Types of Stream Terraces
1.9 Allometric Change
1.10 Comparison of the Davisian, Dynamic-Equilibrium, Quasi-Equilibrium, and Allometric Change Conceptual Frameworks


Chapter 2. Impact of Pleistocene—Holocene Climatic Changes on Desert Streams.
2.1 Independent Variables of the Fluvial System
2.2 Criteria for Mapping Desert Piedmonts
2.3 Mapping of Desert Piedmonts
2.4 Dating of Desert Piedmonts
2.5 Changes in Geomorphic Processes and Fluvial Landscapes Caused by Pleistocene–Holocene Climatic Changes
2.6 Two Modes of Operation of Desert Fluvial Systems


Chapter 3. Lithologic Controls of Geomorphic Responses to Climatic Change on Desert Hillslopes.
3.1 Introduction
3.2 Climatic Geomorphology of the Southwestern Dead Sea Rift Valley
3.3 Lithologic Controls of Sensitivity of Geomorphic Processes to Climatic Change


Chapter 4. Climatic Geomorphology Of A Lofty, Semiarid to Subhumid Mountain Range.
4.1 Introduction
4.2 Terrace Soils Chronosequence
4.3 Stream Terraces
4.4 Time-Transgressive Threshold-Interaction Points


Chapter 5. Changing Climate, Geomorphic Processes, and Landscapes in a Humid Fluvial System.
5.1 Introduction
5.2 Aggradation–Degradation Events
5.3 Hillslope Process-Response Models
5.4 Responses of the Charwell River to Climatic Change


Chapter 6. Comparisons Of Geomorphic Responses to Climatic Change In Fluvial Systems of Extremely Arid to Humid Regions.
6.1 Weathering and Soil-Formation Rates
6.2 Climatic and Tectonic Stream Terraces
6.3 Strean Power and Resisting Power
6.4 Aggradation Events
6.5 Degredation and Reattainment of Equilibium,
6.6 Time Lags of Responses to Late Quaternary Climatic Change
6.7 Different Responses in the Mojave Desert and San Gabriel Mountains
References.
Glossary.
Index.