Lester Charles King (1907–1989) was an English geologist and geomorphologist known for his theories on

scarp retreat Scarp retreat is a geological process through which the location of an escarpment changes over time. Typically the cliff is undermined, rocks fall and form a talus slope, the talus is chemically or mechanically weathered and then removed through ...

. He offered a very different view of the origin of continental landscaping than that of

William Morris Davis William Morris Davis (February 12, 1850 – February 5, 1934) was an American geographer, geologist, geomorphologist, and meteorologist, often called the "father of American geography". He was born into a prominent Quaker family in Philadelphia, ...

. Studying at university in New Zealand King was a disciple of Charles Cotton who was heavily influenced by Davis. While King's ideas were an attempt at refuting Davis'

cycle of erosion The geographic cycle, or cycle of erosion, is an idealized model that explains the development of relief in landscapes. The model starts with the erosion that follows uplift of land above a base level and ends, if conditions allow, in the formati ...

they were themselves of cyclical nature and contributed to what Cliff Ollier has called "Davis bashing" — the ridicule of cyclical theories in geomorphology, in particular Davis' ones. Critics did however not propose alternative models. For him, the weathering of physical factors in arid areas causes the erosion of the hills, the deposition of the weathered material (pediments) and the deposition of these material in lower altitudes, contributing to the formation of the pediplain. He was also an early proponent of

continental drift Continental drift is the hypothesis that the Earth's continents have moved over geologic time relative to each other, thus appearing to have "drifted" across the ocean bed. The idea of continental drift has been subsumed into the science of pl ...

, having lectured on this matter at a number of U.S. universities during a tour in 1958. King was a supporter of the Expanding Earth hypothesis.

References

1907 births 1989 deaths 20th-century British geologists British geomorphologists Victoria University of Wellington alumni University of New Zealand alumni British expatriates in New Zealand British expatriates in South Africa Presidents of the Geological Society of South Africa {{England-scientist-stub