process

A series of actions or events. In geomorphology, a process may be classified as simple or complex; historical or non-historical; immanent -(autonomous, indwelling) or contingent (depending for its existence on something else); and time-bound or timeless (eternal, as with uniformitarianism). A timeless process interacts with a point in the landscape to produce a locally specific landform, which will change over time. (However, the state of a landform may affect the way in which a process operates.) A process-form model attempts to explain landscapes through in-depth accounts of geomorphological and biogeomorphological processes operating at, or near, the crust; but See causation, chaos theory, emergence.