Ravine

This article is about the valley formation. For other uses, see Ravine (disambiguation).
Homole Ravine, Pieniny, Poland
Inside a ravine in Upper Missouri River Breaks National Monument, Montana, United States.

A ravine is a landform narrower than a canyon and is often the product of streamcutting erosion.[1] Ravines are typically classified as larger in scale than gullies, although smaller than valleys.[1]

Overview

A ravine is generally a fluvial slope landform of relatively steep (cross-sectional) sides, on the order of twenty to seventy percent in gradient. Ravines may or may not have active streams flowing along the downslope channel which originally formed them; moreover, often they are characterized by intermittent streams, since their geographic scale may not be sufficiently large to support a perennial watercourse.[2] The difference between a canyon, gorge and ravine could be understood as follows:

a canyon is a narrow chasm with steep cliff walls formed by running water;
a gorge is a deep, narrow passage with steep rocky sides formed by running water;
a ravine is a deep, narrow steep-sided valley formed by running water [3]

Other terms

Other terms for ravine include

Notes

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Definition of "ravine" at Merriam-Webster
  2. ↑ Christopher G. Morris; Academic Press (1992). Academic Press Dictionary of Science and Technology. Gulf Professional Publishing. pp. 1802–. ISBN 978-0-12-200400-1. Retrieved 1 October 2012.
  3. ↑ Infos at Thesaurus website

External links