Terracettes below Morgan's Hill - geograph

A terracette is a

landform A landform is a natural or anthropogenic land feature on the solid surface of the Earth or other planetary body. Landforms together make up a given terrain, and their arrangement in the landscape is known as topography. Landforms include hills, ...

consisting of a hillside ridge arranged as part of sub-parallel "step-like sequences" of such ridges. Terracette occur on step hillsides and are regularly spaced. Various causes have been suggested to explain their origin including: animal trampling,

vegetation Vegetation is an assemblage of plant species and the ground cover they provide. It is a general term, without specific reference to particular taxa, life forms, structure, spatial extent, or any other specific botanical or geographic charac ...

and

regolith Regolith () is a blanket of unconsolidated, loose, heterogeneous superficial deposits covering solid rock. It includes dust, broken rocks, and other related materials and is present on Earth, the Moon, Mars, some asteroids, and other terrestr ...

behaviour,

soil creep Downhill creep, also known as soil creep or commonly just creep, is a type of creep characterized by the slow, downward progression of rock and soil down a low grade slope; it can also refer to slow deformation of such materials as a result of ...

and solifluction including gelifluction. One explanation holds that terracettes are formed when saturated soil particles expand, then contract as they dry, causing them to move slowly downhill. An example of this is the

manger __NOTOC__ A manger or trough is a rack for fodder, or a structure or feeder used to hold food for animals. The word comes from the Old French ''mangier'' (meaning "to eat"), from Latin ''mandere'' (meaning "to chew"). Mangers are mostly used in ...

near the

Uffington White Horse The Uffington White Horse is a prehistoric hill figure, long, formed from deep trenches filled with crushed white chalk. The figure is situated on the upper slopes of White Horse Hill in the English civil parish of Uffington (in the cer ...

. It may also be described as a small, irregular step-like formation on steep hillslopes, especially on those used for pasture which are formed by soil creep or erosion of surface soils exacerbated by the trampling of

livestock Livestock are the domesticated animals raised in an agricultural setting to provide labor and produce diversified products for consumption such as meat, eggs, milk, fur, leather, and wool. The term is sometimes used to refer solely to ani ...

such as sheep or cattle. Synonyms are: catstep cattle terracing, sheep or cattle track. Early investigators such as C. Darwin (1904) believed that animals grazing the hillsides caused terracettes, but further examination revealed places where they abruptly end at steep rock faces or at soils of different composition. Other sites show livestock trails cutting across terracettes. Geomorphologists Vincent and Clarke have also cast doubt about the ability of animals alone to create such regular steps or ridges.

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Geology and geomorphology
Slope landforms Soil landforms {{geology-stub

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