Accumulative Relief

Accumulative Relief 

the aggregate of relief forms created by uneven accumulation of marine, fluvial, lacustrine, glacial, and other deposits, as well as the products of volcanic activity (lava, ash, and so on). Correspondingly, several genetic types of accumulative relief are distinguished—aqueous (aqueoaccumulation plains, proluvial and diluvial trains, channel and offshore bars, sandspits, and so on), glacioaccumulative (moraine and fluvioglacial plains, terminal moraines, drumlins, kames, kame terraces, and others), aeolian (dunes, barchans, and sand ridges), gravitational (talus, collapse accumulations), volcanic (deposition volcanic cones, lava domes, and so on), and organogenic (arising as a result of the activity of organisms—high peat bogs, coral reefs, and others). Certain forms of accumulative relief are the result of human activity (waste piles, dams, and such). Accumulative relief forms are usually distinguished from erosion topography, but this distinction is not absolute, since many relief forms are of mixed accumulative-erosional origin. For example, channel hollows in rivers result partly from water erosion of the channel and bank, and partly from accumulation of inshore shoals, islands, and so on. River terraces, which result from incisions of the channel, are at the same time covered with an alluvium layer accumulated by the stream; therefore, their surfaces represent an accumulative form.