Landscape inheritance: Report of Working Group Number 2

The conventional wisdom is, or until recently has been, that the earth's scenery is essentially youthful, much of it being of pleistocene age. The validity of this assertion was questioned, surfaces and forms of much greater antiquity being cited from several cratonic regions, and also from the older orogens. Exhumed forms, some of them of great age (one inselberg landscape of Archaean age was noted), are more common and extensive than has previously been supposed. Epigene forms of Mesozoic ate are increasingly being demonstrated from the world's cratons and orogens. Etch features also are more widely eveloped than has been realized. It was recommended that studies of denudation chronology be undertaken, possible in relation to contrasted cratonic regions. The nature and age range of surfaces that make up the shields ought to be analysed, the processes responsible for shaping the surfaces, and, in the case of the ancien epigene forms, the reasons for their survival.