Erosion occurs when rocks and soil erode away due to exposure to strong winds or heavy rainfall; often as a result of human activities like farming or land clearing.
Other natural forces also contribute to erosion: water, wind, gravity and glaciers all play their parts.
Water
Water that runs over and through landscapes can wreak havoc with it, leading to erosion in various forms such as rainfall, melting snow, rivers and glaciers. Natural processes often balance out any erosion with new soil formation elsewhere in nature – creating balance by replacing it elsewhere in its course.
Wave action on beaches wears down pebbles and sand, carrying it away and depositing it somewhere else. Erosion also occurs in rivers where sediment floats downstream before depositing itself in wetlands, swamps or other bodies of water.
Water erosion can be affected by several factors, including rainfall intensity and duration, type of rock beneath, slope of land and vegetation cover – some places may be more prone than others because of these interactions.
Wind
Wind erosion wears away landforms by lifting and transporting dust, sand and small rocks; this type of erosion typically occurs in flat arid regions with loose sandy soil. Wind can also erode rock surfaces through abrasion; this process results in landforms like beach dunes or river delta sedimentary rock formations being formed as a result.
Erosion can be caused by various natural elements, including rainfall, water flow and vegetation. Climate can also play a significant role in erosion rates; prolonged drought may contribute to topsoil loss. Human activities like cultivation, construction and deforestation may further accelerate erosion by stripping away a layer of topsoil that holds back erosion rates.
Gravity
Erosion can be simply defined as the movement of rocks and dirt over time from one location to the next. Gravity plays an integral part in this process through events such as landslides, mudflows and slumps as well as indirectly through pulling rain onto Earth, moving glaciers downhill and moving debris through rivers and streams.
Gravity gradually transports small weathered rock particles down slopes through processes such as stream erosion and wind erosion, while larger chunks are moved by mass-wasting events like landslides, mudflows, debris flows, slumps and creep.
Humans are one of the primary contributors to global erosion. Cutting down trees and uprooting plants causes it to happen much more rapidly; construction activities also expose soil to gravity’s pull which would otherwise keep it stable.
Glaciers
Glaciers cause land erosion through two mechanisms known as plucking and abrasion. Plucking occurs when glacier ice freezes onto rocks before pluckeding them off as the glacier moves over them, while abrasion happens when rock debris carried by glaciers scrapes away at and wears away at their surfaces over time. Glaciers also transport their own erosion over great distances to reshape landscapes.
Glacial erosion creates spectacular landscape features. Visit our photo glossary online to view images of landscape features shaped by glacier erosion.
Rock drumlins form when glaciers move slowly along mountain ridges, smoothing their uphill sides while picking out large boulders from downslop sides and then depositing all these rocks as part of a moraine pile when melting occurs.
Landslides
Although landslides may appear sudden, they’re actually caused by forces at work for some time – weathering being one of the primary forces. Weathering involves slowly wearing away rocks through elements like water, ice, heat, wind and oxygen to expose more exposed regions for erosion to take place.
Erosion processes transport loose rocks through erosion processes to another location where it becomes part of a landscape. Eroded sediment can travel as little as millimeters or thousands of kilometers before depositing.
If you live in an area prone to landslides, be wary of signs that one is approaching. Such indicators include tension cracks on slopes, weakening plant communities and variations in rainfall patterns. Also be wary until authorities notify that it is safe to return.