Minor forms developed on steep slopes - Landforms and Geology of Granite Terrains - page 178

Figure 8.8. Suggested mode of development of flared slopes.

Figure 8.9. Turtle Rock, near Wudinna, Eyre Peninsula, South Australia, showing flares on each side of spur.

processes and then buried. The concavity results from the drying out of the surface and near surface
soil and the persistence of moisture and hence longer duration of weathering at depth ( Fig. 8.8) .
This suggested mode of development explains why incipient forms can be found beneath the
regolith, why flared slopes follow the rock-soil junction, and why they tend to be preferentially
developed on the shady or wetter sides of inselbergs and in relation to joints which permit the
ready infiltration of water into the rock mass. Multiple flares are a consequence either of repeti-
tions of subsurface weathering and lowering of the plain, by surface wash and stream erosion, or
water table fluctuations. Volume decrease during weathering, due to evacuation of soluble salts in
solution and of fines by flushing, may have resulted in compaction and surface lowering.
Flares are well-developed on the points of spurs because there the fresh rock is attacked
from two sides in the subsurface ( Figs 8.2a a nd 8.9) . The preferential occurrence of flares on the