valley

valley, elongate depression of the Earth’s surface. Valleys are most commonly drained by rivers and may occur in a relatively flat plain or between ranges of hills or mountains. Those valleys produced by tectonic action are called rift valleys. Very narrow, deep valleys of similar appearance are called gorges. Both of these latter types are commonly cut in flat-lying strata but may occur in other geological situations.

Wherever sufficient rainfall occurs, opportunity exists for the land surface to evolve to the familiar patterns of hills and valleys. There are, of course, hyperarid environments where fluvial activity is minimal. There also are geomorphological settings where the permeability of rocks or sediments induce so much infiltration that water is unable to concentrate on the land surface. Moreover, some landscapes may be so young that insufficient time has elapsed for modification by fluvial action. The role of fluvial action on landscape, including long-term evolutionary processes, is considered here in detail. For additional information on fluvial and hillslope processes relating to valley formation, see river.

Probably the world’s deepest subaerial valley is that of the Kāli Gandaki River in Nepal. Lying between two 8,000-metre (26,000-foot) Himalayan peaks, Dhaulāgiri and Annapūrna, the valley has a total relief of six kilometres (four miles). Because the Himalayas are one of the Earth’s most active areas of tectonic uplift, this valley well illustrates the principle that the most rapid downcutting occurs in areas of the most rapid uplift. The reason for this seeming paradox lies in the energetics of the processes of degradation that characterize valley formation. As will be discussed below, the steeper the gradient or slope of a stream, the greater its expenditure of power on the streambed. Thus, as uplift creates higher relief and steeper slopes, rivers achieve greater power for erosion. As a consequence, the most rapid processes of relief reduction can occur in areas of most rapid relief production.

Perhaps the most famous example of a canyon is the Grand Canyon of the Colorado River in northern Arizona. The Grand Canyon is about 1.6 km (1 mile) deep and 180 metres (590 feet) to 30 km (19 miles) wide and occurs along a 443-km- (275-mile-) long reach where the Colorado River incised into a broad upwarp of sedimentary rocks.

Geomorphic characteristics

The relief of valleys and canyons is produced by the incising action of rivers. Hillslope processes are indeed critical in the development of valley sides (see below), but it is rivers that lower the level of erosion through degradation. Rivers ultimately adjust to a baselevel, defined as the lowest point at which potential energy can be transformed to the kinetic energy of river flow. In most cases, the ultimate baselevel for rivers is sea level. Some rivers drain to enclosed basins below sea level, as, for example, the Jordan River, which flows to the Dead Sea in Israel and Jordan. Moreover, rivers may adjust to local baselevels, including zones of resistance to incision, lakes, and dams (both natural and artificial).

Valley longitudinal profiles

The longitudinal profile of a valley is the gradient throughout its length. Valleys formed by river action typically have a concave upward profile, steep in the headwaters and gentle in the lower reaches. The lower end of such a profile is adjusted to an effective lower limit of erosion defined by the baselevel.

In an ideal case of river adjustment to uniformly resistant materials, the longitudinal profile of a stream assumes a characteristic form that minimizes variations in transporting power. Power in a river derives from the rate of transfer of potential energy, dE/dt, which depends on the rate of fall in elevation of water, dy/dt, according towhere E is energy, t is time, m is mass, g is the acceleration of gravity, and y is elevation. The rate of fall in elevation, in turn, can be expressed as follows:where S is the slope (fall in elevation, dy, with downstream horizontal distance, dx) and V is the flow velocity (change in horizontal distance, dx, with time, dt).

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Combining equations (1) and (2) and using the fluid density ρ (mass per unit volume of water), one obtainswhere W is channel width, D is channel depth, L is a unit length of stream, and the other parameters are as defined above. Because flow discharge Q is defined asthe power per unit length of flow, Ω, can be expressed as

It should be noted that in order to minimize variation in power, a river increasing its discharge in a downstream direction must decrease its slope. Thus, slope must be constantly decreasing downstream, explaining the concave upward character of the longitudinal profile.

The idealized concave upward longitudinal profile defined purely by energy considerations, noted above, only occurs where channel bed resistances and adequate adjustment time permit. Resistant zones of bedrock require greater power for a stream to incise at a given discharge Q than do less resistant zones. Therefore, by equation (5) the stream gradient S must be locally steeper at resistant zones. Similarly, a rapid base-level change, such as a fall of sea level, may not allow adequate time for the entire longitudinal profile to adjust. One indication of such effects on a longitudinal profile is a nick point, or abrupt change in slope of the profile.