Any physiographic land form which displays a subaerially molded terrain and which plunges below sea level without gross interruption of the original relief is described as a submerged or “drowned” feature. Evidently the land has sunk or the sea has risen. Specifically one speaks of a drowned valley or drowned coast (French, ennoyé; German, ertrunken, untertaucht). Rias are non-glacial drowned valleys of high relief. Fjords are drowned glaciated troughs of similar relief. Fjärds are drowned glacial channels of low relief. F. von Richthofen (1886) classified all such coasts as Coasts of Ingression (German, Eingriff), or Embayed Coasts .
The thalwegs of the former rivers form submarine channels which beyond the continental shelf may or may not pass into submarine canyons. Large systems of such submarine fluvial networks are traced on the great continental shelves off south-east Asia (Sunda Shelf, q.v., Vol. I), and off northern Australia (Sahul Shelf, q.v., Vol. I).
Drowned...
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Fairbridge, R.W. (1968). Drowned valley, coast, reef . In: Geomorphology. Encyclopedia of Earth Science. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-31060-6_99
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-31060-6_99
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