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Pediments in Arid Environments

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Geomorphology of Desert Environments

Pediments, gently sloping erosional surfaces of low relief developed on bedrock, occur in a wide variety of lithologic, neotectonic, and climatic settings. Reported on six continents, their distribution spans the range of subpolar latitudes from the Arctic to the Antarctic and the range of climate from hyperarid to humid tropical (Whitaker 1979). On the Cape York Peninsula in tropical north-east Queensland, a tectonically quiescent region of Precambrian granitic and metamorphic rocks overlain by gently dipping Mesozoic and Cenozoic sediments, pediments are a dominant landscape component occurring as fringing piedmonts and strath valleys of the crystalline rocks and as broad erosional plains on the sedimentary rocks (Smart et al. 1980).

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  1. Southwest Satellite Imaging, PO Box 1467, Moab, UT 84532, USA

    John C. Dohrenwend

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  1. Dept. Geography, University of Sheffield, Winter Street, Sheffield, United Kingdom S10 2TN

    Anthony J. Parsons

  2. Dept. Geography, State University of New York, Buffalo, NY 14261, USA

    Athol D. Abrahams

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Dohrenwend, J.C., Parsons, A.J. (2009). Pediments in Arid Environments. In: Parsons, A.J., Abrahams, A.D. (eds) Geomorphology of Desert Environments. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-5719-9_13

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