The Role of Erosion in Land Development
Streams, along with stream erosion, play important parts in the development of the land all over the world. Many important events happen from the result of erosion, including the construction of waterways, erosion of mountains and other natural things, and also deposition of particles.
What is Erosion?
Erosion is the transportation of loose sediments or rock produced by weathering. Moving water is the primary agent for erosion, although ice, gravity, and wind can also cause it. The many kinds of erosion shape the land and make it the way it is today. If it were not for erosion, most of the land would not be the way it is at this time.
Gully Erosion
Gully erosion is the erosion of gullies from high velocity runoff of water. Gullies are the "bigger" or more aged form of rills. Once the process of the running water occurs, the result becomes deep gullies. When water fills these gullies, a vast amount of water flows through it, therefore carrying many particles of soil. This type of erosion forms either a scour gully or headward erosion. A scour gully is when the particles are removed from the area and deposited, then usually being disintegrated after the next water contact. Headward erosion is when the gully extends upstream as a result mostly of waterfalls undercutting the sides. The bottom picture below shows how the waterfalls form and cause damage.
Rill Erosion
Rill erosion is the erosion of recently cultivated soils, often associated with sheet erosion. It is identified by small channels, also known as rills, after a high intensity rainfall. The rills usually are about thirty centimetres deep. If the rainfall exceeds infiltration, a film will begin to be produced (sheet erosion). This begins to form small depressions where the excess water flows. The flowing water soon removes all loose particles, therefore causing other particles to be transported down the rill. Rill erosion is most common in agricultural land, forming on cultivated fields and pastures.
Sheet Erosion
Sheet erosion involves the removal of a layer of soil by either a raindrop splash or water run off. It most commonly takes off the top layer of soil. Sheet erosion is hard to detect at first because the results are not very noticeable. This is often overlooked until the subsoil is exposed.
An increase in pebble roundness in the direction of long shore drift. The process of attrition will erode the pebbles. c) A decrease of pebble size in the direction of long shore drift, again attrition is involved. d) Undercutting (active erosion of the cliffs at one end of the bay).
Investigating the Geographical Processes that are Affecting the Physical and Built Coastal Environment There are three geographical processes that are affecting the physical and built coastal environment, they are; erosion, deposition, and transportation. Erosion is the group of natural processes, including weathering, dissolution, abrasion, corrosion, and transportation, by which material is worn away from the earth’s surface, this is mainly caused by wind, running water, and waves breaking on the coast. Deposition is the depositing something or the laying down of matter by a natural process. Transportation is when sand is moved along the coast by long shore drift. At North Cronulla beach erosion is evident.
Yes this feature is the result of erosion and depositional processes however, it is not associated with the current water course. This feature may be the result of a Gilbert type delta that once occupied this area. Gilbert type deltas have three main components; topsets, foresets and bottomsets. Topsets are fluvial sediments (primarily sandur deposits) that were deposited on the subaerial delta surface. Erosive events occurring on the upper forslope can result in downslope channels and chutes. These features are then eroded by either strong currents or by debris flow resulting in these channels and chutes to become filled. Foresets are a combination of sand and gravel facies. The are deposited by gravitational processes on the delta foreslope and the grains tend to become finer and more angular downslope. Bottomsets consist of fine grained silts and clay and are deposited at the foot of the delta front.
1. 225 MY : Weathering and erosion of very old folded rocks on an area
Coastal erosion is a growing problem along the Gulf Coast. Louisiana is one of the coastal states most affected by coastal erosion. Ninety percent of wetland loss in the nation occurs in Louisiana, losing 25-35 square miles per year. At that rate, Louisiana will lose 640,000 more acres by 2050. Many factors contribute to this land loss, such as rising sea levels, subsidence, hurricane storm surge, cold fronts, and human interference. Cold fronts and hurricanes can both have detrimental consequences on the coast of Louisiana (Zhang 2004) (Restore or Retreat 2012). This research shows whether cold fronts or hurricanes have a larger effect on coastal erosion. The researcher will describe how historical and current satellite imagery help in determining the changes in the Louisiana coast. Based on previous research, the researcher believes that hurricanes have more of an effect on coastal erosion than cold fronts due to the high winds and storm surge.
When it floods sediments can affect the land by losing nutrients in the soil and it can also affect the clarity of
As mountain ranges began to reappear, streams and rivers became more vibrant with rushing waters transferring boulders and gravels to different places on the surface of Earth. Water is known to be one of the most significant factors of the Exhumation of the Rockies; however wind is thought to have played an important role in the removal of the mountains from the depths of debris as well. As John David Love has said, “Wind erosion has tremendous significance in this part of the Rocky Mountain region” (McPhee 60). Consistent southwest winds, blowing in the same direction throughout each time period of the Earth’s history, picked up thousands of feet of debris from the surface of the Earth and carried it away into the Atlantic Ocean. The work of erosion through water and wind has given the landscape its
I chose debris flow because there are huge boulders with mud or water under it. It seemed to also have a path where it came from going downhill. Debris flows usually have lose rocks, soil, and water coming downstream as a
is being eroded by the sea so that cliffs, up to 20 metres high rise
For each stream reach four cross sections were also sampled. At each cross section the samplers performed a heel to toe test to check the consistency of the streams substrate. This test is performed by walking heel to toe accros the creek and picking up everything under the samplers toes. The results of the substrate were averaged by using a code silt=1, sand=2, gravel=3, cobble=4, and boulder=5. The samplers measured the width of the creek and the ordinary high water mark (OHWM). The samplers determined the amount of shade on the creek at each cross section.
It’s funny how things that you used to do as a kid can change the course of people’s lives. Myself, when my parents told me and my brothers and sisters that we were going to the cabin meant a week of solid fun. My family has a cabin up on Camano Island, which is about 20 minutes north of Everett, right off of the I-5 interstate. My family would go up there during the summer with my cousins and grandma, and go swimming when the tide was in, build sandcastles when the tide was out, only to have them washed away when the tide came back in, build forts with the new driftwood that came in each year, explore the wrecked ship down the beach in one direction from our cabin, and scour the dunes that were north of our cabin. The dunes were the best part going to the cabin. We would always try to get there by walking along the wood that had been washed up and once we got there, we would race up the hills and jump down into the sand pits below. Another things that we all used to love doing, were to see who had carved messages into the sides of the dunes. There were all sorts of messages, love message from husband to wife, boyfriend to girlfriend. ‘I was here’ messages, and then there were simply names. That is what we always used to do. Every year, my two cousins, dad, three siblings and I would climb up into the dunes and carve our names into the wall using sticks. This was done over and over again for about 8-10 years. Over the last couple of years we did this we noticed that we could see a house at the top of the dunes. This was something that we never noticed before and when we asked my dad, he said that he never noticed it either. We thought nothing about it at the time, carved our names in the wall and went back to the cabin. Later on we heard from other people who lived up there that there was a big concern by the people who live in that house that all of the messages that people had carved along with the natural erosion of the hills has caused the hill side to be dangerously close to being pushed back far enough to where the house might fall down.
Living in Bangladesh, we have seen quite disastrous mudslides from the past few years. Mudslide is also called a landslide or a land slip. It is a downward mass movement of earth or rock on unstable slopes, including many forms resulting from differences in rock structure, coherence of material involved, degree of slope, amount of included water, extent of natural or artificial undercutting at the base of the slope, relative rate of movement, and relative quantity of material involved. There are numerous facts that can cause a mudslide and there are also numerous effects that it can cause us.
Landslides are known as mass movements of rock, debris or earth down a slope. They are gravity driven geological phenomena that occur as a result of deep slope failure. A website providing basic information for general audience describes three distinct physical events occur during a landslide: the initial slope failure, the subsequent transport, and the final deposition of the slide materials. These mass movements can vary from instantaneous collapses to slow gradual slides and are mostly unpredictable.Usually a number of reasons will contribute towards a landslide. These can be a collective of physical causes or a combination of natural and human activity.Distinct events can also trigger landslips. Few of the natural causes of landslides include seismic activity, undercutting caused by river or wave erosion, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and prolonged rainfall. Some of the human causes include deforestation, Undercutting and overloading of unstable slopes and vibrations caused by construction activity. This essay will firstly discuss about how landslides occur. Then it will discuss few of the physical causes of landslides by analysing two disasters that has occurred in the recent past.One of these two disasters was a result of one distinct event while the other was triggered as a result of a combination of physical reasons. It will also address a few options and measures that can be taken in order to reduce the risk of damage from landslides.
There are many different glacial landforms created by glacial erosion, one of these landforms is U-shaped valleys or glacial troughs. This glacial landform has many distinct characteristics. One of these characteristics is that it has very steep valley sides caused by the glacier as it moves down the valley eroding the sides of the valley by the processes of abrasion and plucking. Abrasion is when the boulders and moraine carried by the glacier rubs and erodes the valley side as it physically moves down the valley. Plucking happens when the water in the glacier freezes inside of the cracks in the individual rocks on the valley side then the water freezes and as the glacier moves the rock is plucked or torn from the valley side producing the steep side to the valley.
- It is the set of endogenous processes that lead to the lamination of rocks (mineralogy, texture, chemical composition and structure) in solid state. It is considered one of the main parts of geology. Basically, scientists make a continuous process of dehydration.