crest

   1)

    a) The commonly linear, narrow top of a ridge, hill, or mountain. It is appropriately applied to elevated areas where retreating backslopes are converging such that these high areas are almost exclusively composed of convex shoulders.

    b) (not preferred) Sometimes used as an alternative for the hillslope component summit.

   Compare: summit (part b), saddle.

   FFP & SW

   2) [ geomorphology ]

   A geomorphic component of hills consisting of the convex slopes (perpendicular to the contour) that form the narrow, roughly linear top area of a hill, ridge, or other upland where shoulders have converged to the extent that little or no summit remains; dominated by erosion, slope wash and mass movement processes and sediments (e.g., slope alluvium, creep). Commonly, soils on crests are more similar to those on side slopes than to soils on adjacent interfluves.

   Compare: interfluve, head slope, side slope, nose slope.

   SW