The study of landform evolution in the Sydney region: a review

Summary

Since the triumph of the fluvialist school, and especially since the introduction of the cyclic model of landform evolution at the turn of this century, geomorphological research in the Sydney region has been pictured as an essentially orderly progression based on the rigorous testing of hypotheses against field evidence. But with the passage of time the tenuous nature of the foundations on which the edifice was built was largely forgotten; what began as inference became regarded as fact. Hypotheses where applied, rarely tested, and theory rather than field evidence became the ultimate court of appeal.

Early accounts gave widely divergent explanations of the landscape. Even at the close of the nineteenth century, Edgeworth David still thought it necessary to refute Charles Darwin's arguments for a marine origin, though Darwin's case had been severely criticized fifty years earlier by J. D. Dana. While the earlier fluvialists undoubtedly paved the way for the advent of cyclic interpretations, the introduction of W. M. Davis's evolutionary scheme greatly increased the momentum of, and gave new direction to landform research. The rapid acceptance of Davis's Geographical Cycle was due essentially to the efforts of E. C. Andrews, but Andrews, unlike his colleagues, was also grea]tly influenced by the work of G. K. Gilbert. In fact the study of erosional process, prompted by Gilbert's example, became paramount in Andrews's work, and led to the recognition of serious anomaly in the Davisian synthesis. Rather than leading to a challenge to the cyclical model, however, anomalous evidence was either ignored or countered by essentially ad hoc modification. A review of more than half a century of research shows that the prime concern was the solving of problems which were made meaningful only by the acceptance of the cyclic model.

Recent research indicates that basic tenets of the traditional interpretation of the region's landforms are unfounded, and that a thorough re‐evaluation of long‐held beliefs is needed. Not only hypotheses relating to particular landforms, but also widely held assumptions about the progress of geomorphologic research in the region are now challenged.