STUDY OF THE MORPHOSTRUCTURES OF MOUNTAINOUS AREAS FROM SPACE IMAGERY

The authors review recent developments in the USSR in the use of remote sensing imagery in the analysis, at the world-regional and local levels, of major relief elements (and structural elements manifest in relief) typical of mountainous country. Keys to their interpretation at a variety of scales are described. Case studies and detailed interpretation of imagery in the Soviet Far East and Central Asia (large-scale) and the Caucasus (intermediate-scale) provide for the identification of all morphostructural elements possible through traditional analysis, and in the latter case, for the first direct detection of transverse (cross-cutting) faults. Translated from: Geomorfologiya, 1988, No. 1, pp. 16-29.