Geomorphology of Papua New Guinea

Abstract

Papua New Guinea's rugged terrain, dense rain forest, extensive swamps and adverse climatic conditions present formidable barriers to scientific exploration and field research. In spite of this remarkable progress has been made in the last two decades and scientists have filled many of the 'blank spaces' on the map and have greatly increased knowledge of the country. This book is the first major synthesis of our present knowledge of Papua New Guinea's land forms, their distribution, origin and development, the processes that acted on them - and are continuing to act. Such things as volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, landslides, and subaerial and subsurface erosion processes, changing river systems and their role in the formation of plains can be better understood by those who read this book: those working in Papua New Guinea and directly concerned with its development and environment such as geologists, agriculturalists, engineers and conservationists, and scholars generally concerned with problems of the geomorphology of the humid tropics. Particularly valuable are the illustrations, which cover a wide range of land forms and illustrate vividly the often dramatic topography.