Landform and Terrain: The Physical Geography of Landscape

Colin Mitchell spent his life studying the landscape. He has a special interest in encouraging everyone, and especially young people, to study and understand the landscapes around them and understand his passion for the physical world. The book is the result of a lifetime of fieldwork and teaching. It sets out to explain the forces that have shaped and continue to form the surface that surrounds us all. The wonderous forces and almost immesurable timescale are explored and explained which makes geoplogy accessible to all. Colin was born in Chelsea, London in 1927, the son of a landscape painter. After a year at Harvard he gained his first degree in Geography from Oxford and then worked as a soil surveyor in Sudan, Iraq, and Pakistan. He obtained a doctorate in terrain studies from Cambridge in 1963 and then lectured in physical geography at Reading University until retirement. He has acted as an FAO consultant in a number of countries including China, Saudi Arabia, Ethiopia and Tanzania. He is author of the books Terrain Evaluation and Landscape Walks in Sussex and joint author of Phytogeomorphology as well as chapters in other books and articles in scientific journals. He has four children and eight grandchildren. Patrick Mitchell, son of Colin, is also a graduate of Oxford and with a higher degree from Cambridge. He has wide interests in natural science especially as they relate to human uses of land and natural resources.