The Beautiful landforms of United States by Zubin Roy

Lake - A lake is a body of water sounded by land.
Biggest lake in the world:   Caspian Sea
Biggest fresh water lake in the world:   Lake Superior
Deepest Lake in the world:   Lake Baikal
Lake with the largest number of fish species in the world:    Lake Malawi
Largest Lake on an island:    Nettilling,Baffin Island(Canada)

Mountain Range - A chain of mountains and hills.
Highest Mountain Range:    Himalayas(Asia).
Longest Mountain Range:    Andes(South America).

Thirteen Years later

This is Lake Tahoe and Sierra Nevada mountain range. Lake Tahoe is between the states of California and Nevada.

Mountain - A large landform that stretches above the surrounding land in a limited area usually in the form of a peak

Highest Mountain of the Earth from the sea level :   Mt.Everest (Nepal).
Highest Mountain from the center of the Earth     Mt.Chimborazo(Ecuador).
Highest Mountain from the floor : Mauna Kea (Hawaii)
Highest Mountain in North America:     Mt.McKinley(Alaska).
Highest Mountain in South America:    Mt. Aconcagua(Chile).
Highest  Mountain in Africa:     Mt.Kilimanjaro(Tanzania).
Highest Mountain in Europe:     Mt. Elbrus(Russia).
Highest Mountain in 48 contiguous USA:     Mt.Whitney(California).
2nd Highest Mountain in North America:     Mt.Logan(Canada).

My mom and me are standing in front of three patriarchs, three mountains. named after Abraham,Issac and Jacob in Zion national park, Utah.

Canyon - A canyon is a deep valley with very steep sides.
Deepest canyon in the world:     Tsangpo(Tibet,China).
Deepest canyon in the US:      Hells Canyon on snake river(Idaho).

Plateau - A plateau is a flat high land .
This is The highest and largest plateau in the world:    Tibetan plateau
(also called roof of the world).

This is Grand Canyon in Arizona and Kailab plateau.

Butte - A butte is a narrow flat  topped hill with steep sides.
Desert - A desert is a very dry land that gets little rain. Usually covered with rocks and stones or sand.
Largest desert in the world:     Sahara Desert(Africa).
Driest desert in the world:    Atacama(Chile).
Driest,Lowest and Hottest place in North America:   Death Valley(California).

This is ''Valley of gods'' a desert park in Utah.
Pinnacle : A pinnacle is a tall slender rock.

Another part of Valley of Gods

Hoodoo - A Hoodoo is a slender mud formation.

Me and my dad among the Hoodoos of Bryce canyon National Park, Utah

Cliff - A cliff is a hill with a steep slope.
Alluvial fan - An alluvial fan is a fan- shaped deposit formed where a fast flowing stream flattens, slows,and spreads typically at the exit of a canyon onto a flatter plain
Bajada - A deposit below a hill or mountain. A debris apron built of many alluvial fans joined together.

I am exploring Capitol Reef National Park, Utah.

Mesa - A Mesa is a flat topped hill with steep sides.
Monument valley is a sacred place for Navajo Indians. These Mesas  are called mittens.

With my mom in Monument Valley, Arizona.

Waterfall - A waterfall is water that falls from a cliff.

Smile....... Thirteen years later

Don't Smile .........

Tallest waterfall in the world:    Angel falls(Venezuela).

Hanging valley - A hanging valley is a valley that falls of a cliff.

If a hanging valley is flooded with sea water, what is such a landform called? See the answer at the end of the blog.

Thirteen Years Later

I am standing on a bridge over river Merced in Yosemite national park, California.

Yosemite national park is in California.

Crater or caldera - A crater is a big hole on the top of a volcano.
Island - An Island is a body of land surrounded by water.
Largest island in the world:    Greenland(Denmark).
Largest fresh water island in the world:     Manitoulin(Lake Huron).
Archipelago - A chain of islands
Largest Archipelago in the world:       Indonesia
Volcano - A volcano is a mountain  that spits out burning hot lava and ash.

The Crater Lake is the deepest lake in the United States. The island behind me is Wizard Island. Crater Lake was formed by an explosion of a volcano.

Redwood tree:    Redwood trees are the tallest trees in the world.
Sequoia tree:   Largest living thing on earth- General Sherman
Bristlecone pine:  Oldest living thing on earth

Me and my dad among a cathedral of redwood trees. Redwood national park, California

Valley - A flat land between a mountain. Buffaloes are grazing in the valley.

My dad in Hayden valley, Yellow stone national park, Wy.

Geyser - A geyser is a hot spring which spits often. Old faithful is the most famous geyser in USA.
Steamboat geyser:Yellowstone NP,Largest geyser in the world

My Mom is in front of a geyser in Yellowstone NP.
Bend - When a river takes a U- turn.
Rapids - A rapid is a fast flowing river.
Confluence - a place where two rivers join.

Rapids are on a river in Sierra Nevada, Yosemite National Park, CA

I am at the confluence of rivers Potomac and Shenandoah in Harper's Ferry.

Outcrop - an exposed rock.

Thirteen Years Later

This is the Biggest granite outcrop in the world:   El capitan Yosemite National Park, CA

Cove,Gulf and bay - A body of water partly surrounded by land.
Delta - The mouth of a river. Biggest gulf in the world:   Gulf of Mexico.
Biggest bay in the world:    Bay of Bengal.

Biggest delta in the world:   Gangetic Delta, Bangladesh
Ravine - A Ravine is a narrow valley made by a stream

Arroyo (Wash)-.A typical flat - floored desert stream bed. This is a dry stream or river bed

Antelope canyon, which is a Ravine and an Arroyo(wash) in Utah

Answer: A flooded Hanging Valley is called Fjord.

More pictures will be added once I visit more National Parks.



Arch - A hollow rock formation like in Arches National Park,Utah. This is formed by wind erosion.
Arete - An arete is a thin, almost knife - like,ridge of rock which is typically formed when two glaciers erode parallel U - shaped valley.
Arroyo - A typical flat - floored desert stream bed. This is a dry stream or river bed, flood occasionally during flood. Also called Wash or dry river.
Badlands - A wide area of eroded land with lot of gullies and ravines. Like Bad land national park.
Butte - (pronounced bewt). A smaller table top mountain then a Mesa.
Canyon - A very deep gorge like the Grand Canyon.
Chimney - Atypical rock column stands off a beach.
Cirque - A mountain bowl shaped by glaciers.
Gorge - A high walled rocky valley cut by vigorous water.
Gulch - A steep and narrow ravine eroded by flash floods.
Gully - This is just a few meters deep, but all gullies are small.
Hanging valley - Small valleys joined to a bigger valley like Yosemite NP.
Fjord - When the lower valley of the hanging valley is flooded with a sea , it became Fjord Hoodoo - Desert erosion carves grotesque shapes like this mushroom as in Bryce Canyon National Park.
Inselberg - Remnant rock knobs typical of deserts.
Mesa - A northern Utah table mountain, like Monument valley.
Ravine - Not big enough to call a canyon, but otherwise similar.
Sea Arch - This one studs the ocean near Goat Rock Beach,California.
Tor - A rocky knob common in Britain - but also in the Mojave Desert.
Volcanic Neck - Volcanic necks emerge as soon as erosion stripes away the ash and lava mantle of volcanoes to reveal their magma cores.
Yardang - Evocative shapes carved by fierce desert winds.
B) Depositional Landforms: Land built up by the movement of Earth material, usually sediment.

Alluvial Fan - An alluvial fan is a fan- shaped deposit formed where a fast flowing stream flattens, slows,and spreads typically at the exit of a canyon onto a flatter plain.
Bajada - A debris apron built of many alluvial fans joined together.
Bar - A sediment pile that may also be a barrier.
Barrier Island - A long sandy bar that guards the coast.
Beach - The most comfortable depositional landform.
Bend - When a river takes a U- turn. The big bend NP in Rio Grande, Texas.
Delta - Triangular or not, the mouth of a river.
Meander -  in general is a bend in a sinuous watercourse. A meander is formed when the moving water in an erodes the outer banks and widens its valley.
Mud Volcano - A mostly gentle edifice made of gas - charged sediment.
Ox bow lake - When a meander gets cut off from the main stream, an oxbow lake is formed.
Playa - dry lake beds are flat, below is a race track Playa in Death valley NP.
Spit - When a bar or a barrier island grows offshore into open water.
Terrace - Ancient benches in a desert basins tell of water times.
Tombolo - A rare orthogonal sand bar on a northern California beach.
Tufa Towers - Limy growths exposed as lakes subside, like this in Mono lake, California.

C) Glacial Landforms

Arete - Jagged cirque - top ridges. When glaciers erode into both sides of a mountain, the cirques on either side eventually meet in a sharp, ragged ridge called an arete (ar -RET). Bergschrund - The true top of a valley glacier. A burgschrund (German, "mountain crack")is a large, in the ice or crevasse at the top of a glacier.
Cirque - Glaciers scoop these rounded valleys out of mountain sides. A cirque is a bowl - shaped rock valley carved in a mountain, often with a glacier or permanent snowfield in it.
Cirque Glacier - Small glaciers in cirques. A cirque may or may not have active ice in it, but when it does the ice is called a cirque glacier or corrie glacier.
Drumlin - Sandy hillocks of sub glacial origin. Drumlins are small, elongated hills of sand and gravel that form underneath large glaciers.
Erratic Boulder - Big stones out of place in Central Park and elsewhere. Erratics are large boulders conspicuously left behind when the glaciers carrying then melted.
Esker - An example from Manitoba. Eskers are long, rounded ridges of sand and gravel laid down in the beds of streams running beneath glaciers.
Fjord - Drowned glacier valleys. A fjord is a glacier valley that has been invaded by the sea. "Fjord" is a Norwegian word. A fjord is a long, narrow sea inlet that is bordered by steep cliffs. Many fjords are found in Alaska.Sognefjord in Norway  is one of the longest fjords in the world.
Hanging Glacier - Small ice flows cling to steep slopes. Just as hanging valleys have disconnect with the valleys they "hang" over, hanging glaciers tumble to the valley glaciers below.
Horn - A mountain deeply sculpted by glaciers. Glaciers grind into mountains  by eroding the cirques at their heads. A mountain steepened on all sides by cirques at their heads. A mountain steepened on all sides by cirques is called a horn. The Matterhorn is the type of example.
Iceberg - Large floating chunk of glacier ice. Not just any piece of ice in the water is called an iceberg; it must have broken off a glacier and exceed 20 meters in length.
Icecave - Carved by a sub glacial stream. Ice caves, or glacier caves,  are made by  streams that run under glaciers.
Icefall - The glacier analog of a waterfall. Glaciers have icefalls where a river would have a waterfall or a cataract.
Ice Field - An upland expanse of ice and snow. An ice field or icefield is a thick body of ice on a mountain basin or plateau that covers all or most of the rock surface, not flowing in an organized way.
Jokulhlaup - A glacier outburst flood. A joulhlaup is a glacial outburst flood, something that happens when a moving glacier forms a dam.
Kettle - A hole in the ground ounce filled with ice. Kettles are hollows left behind by melting ice as the last remnants of glaciers disappear.
Lateral Moraine - Sediment piled alongside a glacier. Lateral moraines are sediment bodies plastered along the flanks of glaciers.
Medial Moraine - Sediment streaks down a glacier's back.Medial moraines are stripes of sediment running down the top of a glacier.
Outwash Plain - Also known as a sandur. Outwash plains are bodies of fresh sediment strewn around the snouts of glaciers.
Piedmont Glacier - A spreading lobe of ice on a flat ground. Piedmont glaciersare wide lobes of ice that spill across flat land.
Roche Moutonnee - Sheepshaped bedrock knobs. A roche moutonnee("rawsh mootenay") is an elongated knob of bedrock that has been carved and smoothed by an overriding glacier.
Rock Glacier - A rocky cousin of ice glaciers.. Rock glaciers are rare then ice glaciers, but they too owe their motion to the presence of ice.
Serac - Tall ice peaks on a glacier. Seracs are tall peaks of ice on the surface of a glacier, commonly forming where sets of crevasses intersect.
Terminal Moraine - A dirt pile at the glacier's snout. Terminal or end moraines are the main sedimentary product of glaciers, basically big dirt piles that accumulate at glacier snouts.
Valley Glacier - A glacier in the mountains. Confusingly, glaciers in mountains country may be called valley, mountain or alpine glaciers.