Bedrock in the context of Chalk stream

An outcrop or rocky outcrop is a visible exposure of bedrock or ancient superficial deposits on the surface of the Earth and other terrestrial planets.

The Great Sphinx of Giza is a limestone statue of a reclining sphinx, a mythical creature with the head of a human and the body of a lion.

The monument was sculpted from the limestone bedrock of the Eocene-aged Mokattam Formation and faces east on the Giza Plateau, on the west bank of the Nile in Giza, Egypt. The oldest known monumental sculpture in Egypt, the Sphinx is part of the Memphite Necropolis and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Karst (/kɑːrst/) is a topography formed from the dissolution of soluble carbonate rocks such as limestone and dolomite. It is characterized by features like poljes above and drainage systems with sinkholes and caves underground. There is some evidence that karst may occur in more weathering-resistant rocks such as quartzite given the right conditions.

Subterranean drainage may limit surface water, with few if any rivers or lakes. In regions where the dissolved bedrock is covered (perhaps by debris) or confined by one or more superimposed non-soluble rock strata, distinctive karst features may occur only at subsurface levels and can be totally missing above ground.

A mountain is an elevated portion of the surface of a planet, generally with steep sides that show significant exposed bedrock. Although definitions vary, a mountain may differ from a plateau in having a limited summit area, and is usually higher than a hill, typically rising at least 600 metres (2,000 ft) above the surrounding land. A few mountains are isolated summits, but most occur in mountain ranges.

Mountains are formed through tectonic forces, erosion, or volcanism, which act on time scales of up to tens of millions of years. Once mountain building ceases, mountains are slowly leveled through the action of weathering, through slumping and other forms of mass wasting, as well as through erosion by rivers and glaciers.

Erosion is the action of surface processes (such as water flow or wind) that removes soil, rock, or dissolved material from one location on the Earth's crust and then transports it to another location where it is deposited. Erosion is distinct from weathering which involves no movement. Removal of rock or soil as clastic sediment is referred to as physical or mechanical erosion; this contrasts with chemical erosion, where soil or rock material is removed from an area by dissolution. Eroded sediment or solutes may be transported just a few millimetres, or for thousands of kilometres.

Agents of erosion include rainfall; bedrock wear in rivers; coastal erosion by the sea and waves; glacial plucking, abrasion, and scour; areal flooding; wind abrasion; groundwater processes; and mass movement processes in steep landscapes like landslides and debris flows. The rates at which such processes act control how fast a surface is eroded. Typically, physical erosion proceeds the fastest on steeply sloping surfaces, and rates may also be sensitive to some climatically controlled properties including amounts of water supplied (e.g., by rain), storminess, wind speed, wave fetch, or atmospheric temperature (especially for some ice-related processes). Feedbacks are also possible between rates of erosion and the amount of eroded material that is already carried by, for example, a river or glacier. The transport of eroded materials from their original location is followed by deposition, which is arrival and emplacement of material at a new location.

A ridge is a long, narrow, elevated geomorphologic landform, structural feature, or a combination of both separated from the surrounding terrain by steep sides. The sides of a ridge slope away from a narrow top, the crest or ridgecrest, with the terrain dropping down on either side. The crest, if narrow, is also called a ridgeline. Limitations on the dimensions of a ridge are lacking. Its height above the surrounding terrain can vary from less than a meter to hundreds of meters. A ridge can be either depositional, erosional, tectonic, or a combination of these in origin and can consist of either bedrock, loose sediment, lava, or ice depending on its origin. A ridge can occur as either an isolated, independent feature or part of a larger geomorphological and/or structural feature. Frequently, a ridge can be further subdivided into smaller geomorphic or structural elements.

Groundwater is the water present beneath Earth's surface in rock and soil pore spaces and in the fractures of rock formations. About 30 percent of all readily available fresh water in the world is groundwater. A unit of rock or an unconsolidated deposit is called an aquifer when it can yield a usable quantity of water. The depth at which soil pore spaces or fractures and voids in rock become completely saturated with water is called the water table. Groundwater is recharged from the surface; it may discharge from the surface naturally at springs and seeps, and can form oases or wetlands. Groundwater is also often withdrawn for agricultural, municipal, and industrial use by constructing and operating extraction wells. The study of the distribution and movement of groundwater is hydrogeology, also called groundwater hydrology.

Typically, groundwater is thought of as water flowing through shallow aquifers, but, in the technical sense, it can also contain soil moisture, permafrost (frozen soil), immobile water in very low permeability bedrock, and deep geothermal or oil formation water. Groundwater is hypothesized to provide lubrication that can possibly influence the movement of faults. It is likely that much of Earth's subsurface contains some water, which may be mixed with other fluids in some instances.

The Antarctic ice sheet is a continental glacier covering 98% of the Antarctic continent, with an area of 14 million square kilometres (5.4 million square miles) and an average thickness of over 2 kilometres (1.2 mi). It is the largest of Earth's two current ice sheets, containing 26.5 million cubic kilometres (6,400,000 cubic miles) of ice, which is equivalent to 61% of all fresh water on Earth. Its surface is nearly continuous, and the only ice-free areas on the continent are the dry valleys, nunataks of the Antarctic mountain ranges, and sparse coastal bedrock. It is often subdivided into the Antarctic Peninsula (AP), the East Antarctic Ice Sheet (EAIS), and the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS), due to the large differences in glacier mass balance, ice flow, and topography between the three regions.

Because the East Antarctic Ice Sheet is over 10 times larger than the West Antarctic Ice Sheet and located at a higher elevation, it is less vulnerable to climate change than the WAIS. In the 20th century, EAIS had been one of the only places on Earth which displayed limited cooling instead of warming, even as the WAIS warmed by over 0.1 °C/decade from 1950s to 2000, with an average warming trend of >0.05 °C/decade since 1957 across the whole continent. As of early 2020s, there is still net mass gain over the EAIS (due to increased precipitation freezing on top of the ice sheet), yet the ice loss from the WAIS glaciers such as Thwaites and Pine Island Glacier is far greater.

Superficial deposits (or surficial deposits) refer to geological deposits typically of Quaternary age (less than 2.6 million years old) for the Earth. These geologically recent unconsolidated sediments may include stream channel and floodplain deposits, beach sands, talus gravels and glacial drift and moraine. All pre-Quaternary deposits are referred to as bedrock.

An alpine lake is a high-altitude lake in a mountainous area, usually near or above the tree line, with extended periods of ice cover. These lakes are commonly glacial lakes formed from glacial activity (either current or in the past) but can also be formed from geological processes such as volcanic activity (volcanogenic lakes) or landslides (barrier lakes). Many alpine lakes that are fed from glacial meltwater have the characteristic bright turquoise green color as a result of glacial flour, suspended minerals derived from a glacier scouring the bedrock. When active glaciers are not supplying water to the lake, such as a majority of Rocky Mountains alpine lakes in the United States, the lakes may still be bright blue due to the lack of algal growth resulting from cold temperatures, lack of nutrient run-off from surrounding land, and lack of sediment input. The coloration and mountain locations of alpine lakes attract lots of recreational activity.

Alpine lakes are some of the most abundant types of lakes on Earth. In the Swiss Alps alone, there are nearly 1,000 alpine lakes, most of which formed after the Little Ice Age. As global temperatures continue to rise, more alpine lakes will be formed as glaciers recede and provide more run-off to surrounding areas, and existing lakes will see more biogeochemical changes and ecosystem shifts. An alpine lake's trophic state (i.e., level of biological productivity) progresses with age (e.g., low productivity after formation and increased productivity with vegetation and soil maturity in the surrounding watershed), but anthropogenic effects such as agriculture and climate change are rapidly affecting productivity levels in some lakes. These lakes are sensitive ecosystems and are particularly vulnerable to climate change due to the highly pronounced changes to ice and snow cover. Due to the importance of alpine lakes as sources of freshwater for agricultural and human use, the physical, chemical, and biological responses to climate change are being extensively studied.

A waterfall is any point in a river or stream where water flows over a vertical drop or a series of steep drops. Waterfalls also occur where meltwater drops over the edge of a tabular iceberg or ice shelf.

Waterfalls can be formed in several ways, but the most common method of formation is that a river courses over a top layer of resistant bedrock before falling onto softer rock, which erodes faster, leading to an increasingly high fall. Waterfalls have been studied for their impact on species living in and around them.

Parent material is the underlying geological material (generally bedrock or a superficial or drift deposit) in which soil horizons form. Soils typically inherit a great deal of structure and minerals from their parent material, and, as such, are often classified based upon their contents of consolidated or unconsolidated mineral material that has undergone some degree of physical or chemical weathering and the mode by which the materials were most recently transported.

The Great Sphinx of Giza is a limestone statue of a reclining sphinx, a mythical creature with the head of a human and the body of a lion. The monument was sculpted from the limestone bedrock of the Eocene-aged Mokattam Formation and faces east on the Giza Plateau, on the west bank of the Nile in Giza, Egypt. The oldest known monumental sculpture in Egypt, the Sphinx is part of the Memphite Necropolis and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Archaeological evidence suggests the Sphinx was created by Egyptians of the Old Kingdom during the reign of Khufu (c. 2590–2566 BC) or Khafre (c. 2558–2532 BC). Scholars and Egyptologists believe the face of the Sphinx was carved to represent either the pharaoh Khufu or one of his sons, pharaohs Djedefre and Khafre, but a consensus has not been reached and the person(s) in whose likeness the Sphinx was carved remains in dispute.

The pedosphere (from Ancient Greek πέδον (pédon) 'ground, earth' and σφαῖρα (sphaîra) 'sphere') is the outermost layer of the Earth that is composed of soil and subject to soil formation processes. It exists at the interface of the lithosphere, atmosphere, hydrosphere and biosphere. The pedosphere is the skin of the Earth and only develops when there is a dynamic interaction between the atmosphere (air in and above the soil), biosphere (living organisms), lithosphere (unconsolidated regolith and consolidated bedrock) and the hydrosphere (water in, on and below the soil). The pedosphere is the foundation of terrestrial life on Earth.

The pedosphere acts as the mediator of chemical and biogeochemical flux into and out of these respective systems and is made up of gaseous, mineralic, fluid and biologic components. The pedosphere lies within the Critical Zone, a broader interface that includes vegetation, pedosphere, aquifer systems, regolith and finally ends at some depth in the bedrock where the biosphere and hydrosphere cease to make significant changes to the chemistry at depth. As part of the larger global system, any particular environment in which soil forms is influenced solely by its geographic position on the globe as climatic, geologic, biologic and anthropogenic changes occur with changes in longitude and latitude.

An ice shelf is a large platform of glacial ice floating on the ocean, fed by one or multiple tributary glaciers. Ice shelves form along coastlines where the ice thickness is insufficient to displace the more dense surrounding ocean water. The boundary between the ice shelf (floating) and grounded ice (resting on bedrock or sediment) is referred to as the grounding line; the boundary between the ice shelf and the open ocean (often covered by sea ice) is the ice front or calving front.

Ice shelves are found in Antarctica and the Arctic (Greenland, Northern Canada, and the Russian Arctic), and can range in thickness from about 100–1,000 m (330–3,280 ft). The world's largest ice shelves are the Ross Ice Shelf and the Filchner-Ronne Ice Shelf in Antarctica.

The New York–New Jersey Harbor Estuary, also known as the Hudson-Raritan Estuary, is in the northeastern states of New Jersey and New York on the East Coast of the United States. The system of waterways of the Port of New York and New Jersey forms one of the most intricate natural harbors in the world and one of the busiest ports of the United States. The harbor opens onto the New York Bight in the Atlantic Ocean to the southeast and Long Island Sound to the northeast.

Although the overall form of the estuary remains unchanged from the time of Giovanni da Verrazzano's visit in 1524, all parts have changed at least a little, and some parts, such as Hell Gate and Ellis Island, have been almost completely altered. In the greatest hidden change, the navigational channels have been deepened from the natural 17 feet (5.2 m) depth to 45 feet (14 m). In some places this required blasting of bedrock.