Definition of Geographic Depression

The geographyof our planet presents diverse geographical accidents that make and determine the particularities of each terrain, in as much, A geographical depression is an area, an area of ​​the relief of our planet that is characterized by being at a lower height than the regions that surround it.

Basically what produces a depression is the subsidence of the land in question and it can be due to several causes. Subsidence is a common reason for depressions that consists of the vertical subsidence of the land corresponding to a basin sedimentary due to an excavation process and the consequent weight of the sediments. The I usually it is totally destabilized and the ground then depresses vertically at a rather slow rate.

Different is what happens with the collapses of the lands in which the speed The sinking is certainly phenomenal and in a short time the area is completely depressed.

After that collapse, the area affected by depression can be literally covered by the

Water, several meters from the water surface, that is, below sea level, or failing that, it can be completely under the sail of the contiguous areas that have a higher altitude. Some very characteristic examples of this that we comment on are the Caspian Sea, which is the maximum depression of the continent European and on the other hand the Great Basin in the western zone of the United States of America.

The size of the depressions can be of very few meters of diameter or it is a huge depressive structure that can even have a continental level.

Depressions can be the result of various factors, among which are: the movements that occur in the tectonic plates and that have a direct impact on the geological material; when it finishes accommodating, for example, a mountain relief; oscillations that occur in the soil or groundwater, either due to natural causes or due to intervention of man; a fault in the geological structure, among others.

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