Mass Wasting
MASS WASTING
CONCEPT
The term mass wasting (sometimes called mass movement) encompasses a broad array of processes whereby earth material is transported down a slope by the force of gravity. It is related closely to weathering, which is the breakdown of minerals or rocks at or near Earth's surface through physical, chemical, or biological processes, and to erosion, the transport of material through a variety of agents, most of them flowing media, such as air or water. Varieties of mass wasting are classified according to the speed and force of the process, from extremely slow creep to very rapid, dramatic slide or fall. Examples of rapid mass wasting include landslides and avalanches, which can be the cause of widespread death and destruction when they occur in populated areas.
HOW IT WORKS
Moving Earth and Rocks
In discussing mass wasting, the area of principal concern is Earth's surface rather than its interior. Thus, mass wasting is related most closely to the realm of geomorphology, a branch of physical geology concerned with the study of landforms, with the forces and processes that have shaped them, and with the description and classification of various physical features on Earth. Though plate tectonics (which involves the movement of giant plates beneath the earth's surface) can influence mass wasting, plate tectonics entails interior processes that humans usually witness only indirectly, by seeing their effects. Mass wasting, on the other hand, often can be observed directly, particularly in its more rapid forms, such as rock fall.
There are three general processes whereby a piece of earth material can be moved from a high outcropping to the sea: weathering, mass wasting, or erosion. If mechanical, biological, or chemical processes act on the material, dislodging it from a larger sample of material (e.g., separating a rock from a boulder), it is an example of weathering, which is discussed later in this essay. Supposing that a rock has been broken apart by weathering, it may be moved further by mass-wasting processes, such as creep or fall. Pieces of rock swept away by a river in a valley below the outcropping and small bits of rock worn away by high winds are examples of erosion. Erosion and weathering are examined in separate essays within this book.
As for the relationships between erosion, weathering, and mass wasting, the lines are not clearly drawn. Some authors treat weathering and mass wasting as varieties of erosion, and some apply a strict definition of erosion as resulting only from flowing media. (In the physical sciences, fluid means anything that flows, not just liquids.) Weathering, mass wasting, and erosion also can be viewed as stages in a process, as described in the preceding paragraph. This broad array of approaches, while perhaps confusing, only serves to illustrate the fact that the earth sciences are relatively young compared with such ancient disciplines as astronomy and biology. Not all definitions in the earth sciences are, as it were, "written in stone."
Weathering
A mineral is a substance that occurs naturally, is usually inorganic, and typically has a crystalline structure. The term organic does not necessarily mean "living" rather, it refers to all carbon-containing compounds other than oxides, such as carbon dioxide, and carbonates, which are often found in Earth's rocks. A crystalline solid is one in which the constituent parts have a simple and definite geometric arrangement repeated in all directions.
Rocks, scientifically speaking, are simply aggregates or combinations of minerals or organic material or both, and weathering is the process whereby rocks and minerals are broken down into simpler materials. Weathering is the mechanism through which soil is formed, and therefore it is a geomorphologic process essential to the sustenance of life on Earth. There are three varieties of weathering: physical or mechanical, chemical, and biological.
THE THREE TYPES OF WEATHERING.
Physical or mechanical weathering involves such factors as gravity, friction, temperature, and moisture. Gravity, for instance, may cause a rock to drop from a height, such that it falls to the ground and breaks into pieces. If wind-borne sand blows constantly across a rock surface, the friction will have the effect of sandpaper, producing mechanical weathering. In addition, changes in temperature and moisture will cause expansion and contraction of materials, bringing about sometimes dramatic changes in their physical structure.
Chemical weathering not only is a separate variety of weathering but also is regarded as a second stage, one that follows physical weathering. Whereas physical changes are typically external, chemical changes affect the molecular structure of a substance, bringing about a rearrangement in the ways that atoms are bonded. Important processes that play a part in chemical weathering include acid reactions, hydrolysis (a reaction with water that results in the separation of a compound to form a new substance or substances), and oxidation. The latter can be defined as any chemical reaction in which oxygen is added to or hydrogen is removed from a substance.
An example of biological weathering occurs when a plant grows from a crevice in a rock. As the plant grows, it gradually forces the sides of the crevice apart even further, and it ultimately may tear the rock apart. Among the most notable agents of biological weathering are algae and fungi, which may be combined in a mutually beneficial organism called a lichen. (Reindeer moss is an example of a lichen.) Through a combination of physical and chemical processes, organisms ranging from lichen to large animals can wear away rock gradually.
Properties of Unconsolidated Material
Regolith is a general term that describes a layer of weathered material that rests atop bedrock. It is unconsolidated, meaning that it is in pieces, like gravel, though much less uniform in size. Sand and soil, including soil mixed with loose rocks, are examples of regolith.
Every variety of unconsolidated material has its own angle of repose, or the maximum angle at which it can remain standing. Everyone who has ever attempted to build a sand castle at the beach has experienced angle of repose firsthand, perhaps without knowing it. Imagine that you are trying to build a sand castle with a steep roof. Dry sand would not be good for this purpose, because it is loose and has a tendency to flow easily. Much better would be moist sand, which can be shaped into a sharper angle, meaning that it has a higher angle of repose.
A certain amount of water gives sand surface tension, the same property that causes water to bead up on a table rather than lying flat. If too much water is added to the sand, however, the sand becomes saturated and will flow, a process called lateral spreading. Thus, to a point, the addition of water increases the angle of repose for sand, which is only about 34° when the sand is dry. (This is the angle of repose for sand in an hourglass.) On the other hand, piles of rocks may have an angle of repose as high as 45°. In practice, most aggregates of materials in nature have slopes less than their angle of repose, owing to the influence of wind and other erosive forces.
Types of Mass Wasting
As noted earlier, there is some disagreement among writers in the geologic sciences regarding the types of mass wasting. Indeed, even the term mass wasting is not universal, since some writers refer to it as mass movement. Others do not even treat the subject as a category unto itself, preferring instead to address related concepts, such as weathering and erosion, as well as instances of mass wasting, such as avalanches and landslides.
For this reason, the classification of mass-wasting processes presented here is by no means universal and instead represents a composite of several schools of thought. Generally speaking, geologists and geomorphologists classify processes of mass wasting according to the rapidity with which they occur. Most sources recognize at least three types of mass wasting: flow, slide, and fall. Some sources include slump among the categories of relatively rapid mass-wasting process, as opposed to the slower, less dramatic (but ultimately more important) process known as creep. Some writers classify uplift and subsidence with mass wasting; however, in this book, uplift and subsidence are treated separately, in the Geomorphology essay.
REAL-LIFE APPLICATIONS
Creep
Creep is the slow downward movement of regolith as a result of gravitational force. Before the initiation of the creeping process, the regolith is in what physicists call a condition of unstable equilibrium: it remains in place, yet a relatively small disturbance would be enough to dislodge it. Though it is slow, creep can produce some of the most dramatic results over time. It can curve tree trunks at the base, break or overturn retaining walls, and cause objects from fence posts to utility poles to tombstones to be overturned.
Changes in temperature or moisture are among the leading factors that result in the disturbance of regolith. A change in either can cause material to expand or contract, and freezing or thawing may be enough to shake regolith from its position of unstable equilibrium. In fact, some geomorphologists cite a distinct mass-wasting process, known as solifluction, that occurs in the active layer of permafrost, which thaws in the summertime. Water also can provide lubrication or additional weight that assists the material in moving. One of the only causes of creep not associated with changes in temperature or moisture is the burrowing of small animals.
Slump and Slide
Slump occurs when a mass of regolith slides over or creates a concave surface (one shaped like the inside of a bowl). The result is the formation of a small, crescent-shaped cliff, known as a scarp, at the upper end—rather like the crest of a wave. Soil flow takes place at the bottom end of the slump. One is likely to see slumps in any place where forces, whether man-made or natural, have graded material to a slope too steep for its angle of repose. This may happen along an interstate highway, where a road crew has cut the slope too sharply, or on a riverbank, where natural erosion has done its work.
Often, slump is classified as a variety of slide, in which material moves downhill in a fairly coherent mass (i.e., more or less in a section or group) along a flat or planar surface. These movements sometimes are called rock slides, debris slides, or, in common parlance, landslides. Among the most destructive types of mass wasting, they may be set in motion by earthquakes, which are caused by plate tectonic processes, or by hydrologic agents (i.e., excessive rain or melting snow and ice).
Flow
When a less uniform, or more chaotic, mass of material moves rapidly downslope, it is called flow. Flow is divided into categories, depending on the amounts of water involved: granular flow (0-20% water) and slurry flow (20-40% water). Creep and solifluction often are classified as very slow forms of granular and slurry flow, respectively. In order of relative speed, these categories are as follows:
Granular Flow (0-20% Water)
- Slowest: Creep
- Slower: Earth flow
- Faster: Grain flow
- Fastest: Debris avalanche
Slurry Flow (20-40% Water)
- Slow: Solifluction
- Medium: Debris flow
- Fast: Mudflow
Earth flow moves at a rate anywhere from 3.3 ft. (1 m) per year to 330 ft. (100 m) per hour. Grain flow can be nearly 60 mi. (100 km) per hour, and debris avalanche may achieve speeds of 250 mi. (400 km) per hour, making it extremely dangerous. Among types of slurry flow, debris flow is roughly analogous to earth flow, falling into a range from about 4 in. (10 cm) per year to 0.6 mi. (1 km) per hour. Mudflow is slightly faster than grain flow. If the water content is more than 40%, a slurry flow is considered a stream.
Earth flows involve fine-grained materials, such as clay or silt, and typically occur in humid areas after heavy rains or the melting of snow. Debris flows usually result from heavy rains as well and may start with slumps before flowing downhill, forming lobes with a surface broken by ridges and furrows. Grain flows can be caused by a small disturbance, which forces the dry, unconsolidated material rapidly downslope. Debris avalanches are commonly the result of earthquakes or volcanic eruptions.
Seismic disturbances or volcanic activity may cause the collapse of a mountain slope, sending debris avalanches moving swiftly even along the gentler slopes of the mountainside. Likewise, mudflows may be the result of volcanic activity, in which case they are known as lahars. In some situations, the material in a lahar is extremely hot. Mudflows tend to be highly fluid mixtures of sediment (material deposited at or near Earth's surface from a number of sources, most notably preexisting rock) and water and typically flow along valley floors.
Fall
Most other forms of mass wasting entail movement along slopes that are considerably less than 90°, whereas fall takes place at angles almost perpendicular to the ground. Anyone who has driven through a wide mountain area, with steep cliffs on either side, has seen signs that say "Watch for Falling Rock." These warnings, which appear regularly on the drive through the Rockies in Colorado or on highways across the Blue Ridge and Great Smoky mountains in the southern United States, indicate the threat of rock fall.
The mechanism behind rock fall is simple enough. When a rock at the top of a slope is in unstable equilibrium, it can be dislodged such that it either falls directly downward or bounces and rolls. Usually, the bottom of the slope or cliff contains accumulated talus, or fallen rock material. Freezing and thawing as well as the growth of plant roots may cause fall. The latter is not limited to rock fall: debris fall, which is closely related, includes soil, vegetation, and regolith as well as rocks.
Mass Wasting and Natural Disasters
Among the most dramatic and well-known varieties of mass wasting are avalanches, a variety of flow, and landslides, which (as their name suggests) are a type of slide. These can result, and have resulted, in enormous loss of life and property. Some notable modern occurrences of mass wasting, and the type of movement involved, are listed below. With each incident, the approximate number of fatalities is shown in parentheses.
- China, 1920: Landslide caused by an earthquake (200,000)
- Peru, 1970: Debris avalanche related to an earthquake (70,000)
- Colombia, 1985: Mudflow related to a volcanic eruption (23,000)
- Soviet Union, 1949: Landslide caused by an earthquake (12,000-20,000)
- Italy and Austria, 1916: Landslide (10,000)
- Peru, 1962: Landslide (4,000-5,000)
- Italy, 1963: Landslide (2,000)
- Japan, 1945: Landslide caused by a flood (1,200)
- Ecuador, 1987: Landslide related to an earthquake (1,000)
- Austria, 1954: Landslide (200)
The Role of Plate Tectonics
Note how many times an instance of mass wasting was either caused by or "related to" (meaning that geologists could not establish a full causal relationship) volcanic or seismic activity. Both, in turn, are the result of plate movement in most instances, and thus it is not surprising that several of the locales noted here are either at plate margins or in mountainous regions where plate tectonic and other processes are at work. (For more on this subject, see the entries Plate Tectonics and Mountains.)
To set mass wasting into motion, it is necessary to have a steep slope and some type of force to remove material from its position of unstable equilibrium. Plate tectonic processes provide both. Not only does an earthquake, for instance, jar rocks loose from the upper portion of a slope, but the movement of plates also helps create steep slopes, for example, the collision of the Indo-Australian and Eurasian belts that produced the Himalayas.
Some of the most vigorous plate tectonic activity occurs underwater, and, likewise, there are remarkable manifestations of mass wasting beneath the seas. Off Moss Landing, a research facility that serves a consortium of state universities in northern California, is an underwater canyon more than 0.6 mi. (1 km) deep. At one time, Monterey Canyon was thought to be the result of erosion by a river flowing into the ocean; however, today it is believed to be the result of underwater mass wasting.
Detecting and Preventing Mass Wasting
The dramatic instances of mass wasting discussed here hardly require any effort at detection. Their effect is obvious and, to those unfortunate enough to be nearby, inescapable. Other types of mass wasting occur so slowly that they do not invite immediate detection. This can be unfortunate, because in some cases slow mass wasting is a harbinger of much more rapid movements to follow.
A dwelling atop a hill is subject to enormous gravitational force, and the more massive the dwelling, the greater the pull of gravity. (Weight is, after all, nothing but gravitational force.) If a homeowner adds a swimming pool or other items that contribute to the weight of the dwelling, it only increases the chances that it may experience mass wasting. Heavy rains can bring so much water that it saturates the soil, reducing its surface tension and causing it to slide—as occurred, for instance, in the area around Malibu, California, during the late 1990s.
The California mud slides and landslides are a dramatic example of mass wasting, but more often than not mass wasting takes the form of creep, which is detectable only over a matter of years. When creep occurs, the upper layer of soil moves, while the layer below remains stationary. One way to keep the upper layer in place is to plant vegetation that will put down roots deep enough to hold the soil.
This may create unintended consequences. During the 1930s, New Deal officials imported kudzu plants from China, intending to protect the hillsides of the American South from creep and erosion. The kudzu protected the slopes, but as it turned out, this voracious plant had a tendency to creep as well. Before communities began taking steps to eradicate it, or at least push it back, in the 1970s, kudzu seemingly threatened to cover the entire southern United States.
To prevent some of the more dramatic varieties of mass wasting, such as landslides in a residential area, a homeowner or group of homeowners may commission an engineer's study. The engineer can test the material of the slope, measure the stresses acting on it, and perform other calculations to predict the likelihood that a slope will succumb to a given amount of force. For this reason, zoning laws in areas with steep slopes are typically strict. These laws are geared toward preventing homeowners and builders from erecting structures likely to create a threat of mass wasting in a period of heavy rains.
WHERE TO LEARN MORE
Abbott, Patrick. Natural Disasters. Dubuque, IA: WilliamC. Brown Publishers, 1996.
Allen, Missy, and Michel Peissel. Dangerous Natural Phenomena. New York: Chelsea House, 1993.
Armstrong, Betsy R., and Knox Williams. The Avalanche Book. Golden, CO: Fulcrum, 1986.
Goodwin, Peter. Landslides, Slumps, and Creeps. New York: Franklin Watts, 1997.
Gore, Pamela. "Mass Wasting" (Web site). <http://www.gpc.peachnet.edu/~pgore/geology/geo101/masswasting.html>.
Mass Wasting (Web site). <http://www.es.ucsc.edu/~jsr/EART10/Lectures/HTML/lecture.07.html>.
"Mass Wasting Features of North Dakota." North Dakota State University (Web site). <http://www.ndsu.nodak.edu/nd_geology/nd_mwast/index_mw.htm>.
Murck, Barbara Winifred, Brian J. Skinner, and StephenC. Porter. Dangerous Earth: An Introduction to Geologic Hazards. New York: John Wiley, 1996.
Nelson, Stephen A. Mass-Wasting and Mass-Wasting Processes. Tulane University (Web site). <http://www.tulane.edu/~sanelson/geol204/masswastproc.htm>.
Weathering and Mass Wasting Learning Module (Web site). <http://home.aol.com/rhaberlin/mwmod.htm>.
KEY TERMS
ANGLE OF REPOSE:
The maximum slope at which a relatively large sample of unconsolidated material can remain standing. Often, the addition of water increases the angle of repose, up to the point at which the material becomes saturated.
AVALANCHE:
See flow.
CREEP:
A form of mass wasting involving the slow downward movement of regolith as a result of gravitational force.
EROSION:
The movement of soil and rock due to forces produced by water, wind, glaciers, gravity, and other influences. In most cases, a fluid medium, such as air or water, plays a part.
FALL:
A form of mass wasting in which rock or debris moves downward along extremely steep angles.
FLOW:
A form of mass wasting in which a body of material that is not uniform moves rapidly downslope. Flow is divided into categories, depending on the amounts of water involved: granular flow (0-20% water) and slurry flow (20-40%water). An avalanche is an example of flow and may involve either rock (granular) or snow (slurry).
FLUID:
In the physical sciences, the term fluid refers to any substance that flows and therefore has no definite shape—that is, both liquids and gases. In the earth sciences, occasionally substances that appear to be solid, for example, ice in glaciers, are, in fact, flowing slowly.
GEOMORPHOLOGY:
An area of physical geology concerned with the study of landforms, with the forces and processes that have shaped them, and with the description and classification of various physical features on Earth.
LANDSLIDE:
See slide.
LITHOSPHERE:
The upper layer of Earth's interior, including the crust and the brittle portion at the top of the mantle.
KEY TERMS
MASS WASTING:
The transfer of earth material down slopes by processes that include creep, slump, slide, flow, and fall. Also known as mass movement.
PLATE MARGINS:
Boundaries betweenplates.
PLATE TECTONICS:
The name both of a theory and of a specialization of tectonics. As an area of study, plate tectonics deals with the large features of the lithosphere and the forces that shape them. As atheory, it explains the processes that have shaped Earth in terms of plates and their movement.
PLATES:
Large, movable segments of the lithosphere.
REGOLITH:
A general term describing a layer of weathered material that rests atopbedrock.
SEDIMENT:
Material deposited at or near Earth's surface from a number of sources, most notably preexisting rock.
SLIDE:
A variety of mass wasting in which material moves downhill in a fairly coherent mass (i.e., more or less in a section or group) along a flat or planar surface.
SLUMP:
A form of mass wasting that occurs when a mass of regolith slides over or creates a concave surface (one shaped like the inside of a bowl).
SURFACE TENSION:
An attractive force exerted by molecules in the interior of a liquid on molecules at the exterior. This force draws the material inward such that it occupies less than its maximum horizontal area. The surface tension of water ishigh, causing it to bead on most surfaces.
UNSTABLE EQUILIBRIUM:
A situation in which an object remains in place, yet a relatively small disturbance would be enough to dislodge it.
WEATHERING:
The breakdown of rocks and minerals at or near the surface of Earth due to physical, chemical, or biological processes.
Mass Wasting
Mass Wasting
Mass wasting processes
Mass wasting in loose aggregates
Mass wasting in rocks and soils
What can we do about mass wasting?
Mass wasting, or mass movement, is the process that moves Earth materials down a slope, under the influence of gravity. Mass wasting processes range from violent landslides to imperceptibly slow creep. Mass wasting decreases the steepness of slopes, leaving them more stable. While ice formation or water infiltration in sediments or rocks may aid mass wasting, the driving force is gravity. All mass wasting is a product of one or more of the following mass wasting processes: flow, fall, slide, or slump.
Mass wasting processes
The four processes of mass wasting are distinguished by the nature of the movement that they produce. Flow involves the rapid downslope movement of a chaotic mass of material; varying amounts of water may be involved. A mudflow, for example, contains a large amount of water and involves the movement of very fine-grained Earth materials. Fall involves very rapid downslope movement of Earth materials as they descend (free fall) from a cliff. Ignoring wind resistance, falling materials move at 32 feet/second2 (9.8 m/sec2 —the fastest rate possible in a natural system. Slides result when a mass of material moves downslope, as a fairly coherent mass, along a planar surface. Slumps are similar to slides but occur along a curved (concave-upward) surface and move somewhat more slowly.
Moving mountains to the sea
Consider a chunk of rock currently attached to a jagged outcrop high on a mountain. It will move to the sea as a result of three processes: weathering, mass wasting, and erosion.
On warm days, water from melting snow trickles into a crack that has begun to form between this chunk and the rest of the mountain. Frigid nights make this water freeze again, and its expansion will widen and extend the crack. This and other mechanical, biological, and chemical processes (such as the growth of roots, and the dissolution of the more soluble components of rock) break bedrock into transportable fragments. This is called weathering.
Once the crack extends through it and the chunk has been completely separated from the rest of the mountain, it will fall and join the pile of rocks, called talus, beneath it that broke off the mountain previously. This movement is an example of mass wasting, known as a rockfall. As talus pile adjusts to the weight of the overlying rocks, its base extends outward;
eventually all the rocks making up the pile will move down slope a little bit to replace those below that also moved downslope. This type of mass movement is known as rock creep, and a talus pile experiencing rock creep is called a rock glacier.
In the valley at the bottom of this mountain, there may be a river or a glacier removing material from the base of the talus slope and transporting it away. Removal and transport by a flowing medium (rivers, glaciers, wind) is termed erosion.
These processes occur in many other situations. A river erodes by cutting a valley through layers of rock, transporting material in its flowing water. This erosion would result in deep canyons with vertical walls if the erosion by the river were the only factor. But very high vertical walls leave huge masses of rock unsupported except by the cohesive strength of the material of which they are made. At some point, the stresses produced by gravity will exceed the strength of the rock and an avalanche (another type of mass movement) will result. This will move some of the material down the slope into the river where erosion will carry it away.
Erosion and mass wasting work together by transporting material away. Erosion produces and steepens slopes, which are then reduced by mass wasting.
Mass wasting in loose aggregates
The steepness of a natural slope depends on the size and shape of the material making up the slope and environmental factors, principally water content. Most people learn about this early in life, playing in a sandbox or on the beach. If you dump dry sand from a bucket it forms a conical hill. The more sand you dump the larger the hill gets, but the slope of the hill stays the same. If you stop dumping sand and start to dig into the bottom of the hill, sand will avalanche down into the hole you are trying to make. Loose, dry sand flows easily and will quickly reestablish its preferred slope whenever you do anything to steepen it. The flow of sand is a simple example of mass wasting.
If sand is moist, the slope can be higher. A sand castle can have vertical walls when it is built of moist sand in the morning, but as the afternoon wears on and the sand dries out, it crumbles and collapses (mass wastes) until a stable slope forms. This is because the water makes the sand more cohesive. With the proper moisture content, there will be both water and air between most of the grains of sand. The boundary between the water and the air has surface tension—the same surface tension that supports water striders or pulls liquids up a capillary tube. In moist sand, surface tension holds the grains together like a weak cement.
However, if sand becomes saturated with water (that is, its pores become completely water-filled as they are in quicksand), then the sand will flow in a process known as lateral spreading. Water-saturated sand flows because its weight is supported (at least temporarily) by the water, and the grains are not continuously in contact. This means that the slope stability depends on water content; either too little or too much lowers the stable slope.
The steepest slope that a material can have is called the angle of repose. Any loose pile of sediment grains has an angle of repose. As grain size increases, the angle of repose also increases. Talus slopes high on mountain sides may consist of large, angular boulders and can have slopes of up to 45°, whereas fine sand has a 34° angle of repose. This is the slope that you can see inside a sand-filled hour glass. In nature, however, slopes less than the angle of repose are common because of wind activity and similar environmental processes.
A typical sand dune has a gentle slope on the windward side, where erosion by wind is responsible for the slope. On the leeward side, where sand falls freely, it usually maintains a slope close to the angle of repose. This permits you to run up the windward side where the sand has been tightly packed by the wind, then jump off the crest, land on the leeward slope where you cause (and become part of) a sand avalanche down that slope.
So far we’ve discussed loose deposits of particles on land, but similar conditions exist under water, although stable slopes are much gentler. When sudden mass wasting events occur under water, large quantities of material may end up being suspended in the water, producing turbidity currents that complicate the picture. Such currents occur because a mass of water with sediment suspended in it is denser than the clear water surrounding it, so it sinks, moving down the slope, eroding as it goes. Still, the initial adjustment of the slope was not the result of these currents, so the mechanism that produces turbidity currents is an example of mass wasting.
Mass wasting in rocks and soils
Most slopes in nature are on materials that are not loose collections of grains. They occur on bedrock or on soils that are bound together by organic or other materials. Yet many of the principles used to explain mass wasting in aggregates still apply. Instead of mass wasting taking place as an avalanche, however, it results when a portion of the slope breaks off and slides down the hill. We usually call these events landslides, or avalanches, if they are large and damaging, or slumps if they are smaller.
If the gravitational forces acting on a mass of material are greater than its strength, a fracture will develop, separating the mass from the rest of the slope. Usually this fracture will be nearly vertical near the top of the break, curving to a much lower angle near the bottom of the break. Such events can be triggered by an increase in the driving forces (for example, the weight of the slope), a decrease in the strength of the material, or both.
When people build on slopes they add to the gravitational forces by constructing very heavy things, such as houses and swimming pools. A period of heavy rain can add even more weight to the slope, and can also change the strength of the material making up the slope. As we have seen, saturated soil with no surface tension is much weaker than moist soil. But there is another effect that occurs even in solid rock.
Even very solid rocks contain pores, and many of these are interconnected. It is through such pores that water and oil move toward wells. Below the water table, all pores are filled with water with no surface tension to eliminate. So it might seem that rock down there would not be affected by rainfall at the surface. As the rains come, however, the water table rises, and the additional water increases the pressure in the fluids in the pores below. This increase in pore pressure pushes adjacent rock surfaces apart, reducing the friction between them, which lowers the strength of the rock and makes it easier for fractures to develop. Elevated pore pressures are implicated in many dramatic mass wasting events.
When southern California gets heavy rains, television news cameras record beautiful homes moving down slope in a landslide or mudflow to become rubble at the bottom. Such dramatic examples of mass wasting are impressive, but represent only a fraction of what is all around us everyday.
Soil creep
When mass wasting by flow occurs so slowly that it cannot be observed, it is called creep. Most vegetated slopes in humid climates are subject to soil creep, and there are many indicators that it occurs. Poles and fence posts often tip away from a slope a few years
KEY TERMS
Angle of repose —The slope made by a pile of loose material, such as the sand in an hour glass.
Avalanche —A mass movement in which a chaotic mass of rock and/or soil very rapidly flows down slope along a discrete surface; an avalanche is a type of flow.
Creep —A mass movement that involves gradual down-slope movement (flow), too slow to be observed directly, but apparent in many long term observations.
Erosion —Movement of material caused by the flow of ice, water, or air, and the modification of the surface of Earth (by forming or deepening valleys, for example) produced by such transport.
Flow —A mass movement process in which a chaotic mass of Earth material moves down slope; rates of flow are a function of fluid content of the mass and the grain size the higher the fluid content and finer the particles, the faster the flow.
Landslide —A mass movement in which a fairly coherent mass of rock and/or soil rapidly moves down slope along a discrete plane; sometimes used to include all types of moderately rapid mass movements involving flows, falls, or slides.
Lateral spreading —Mass wasting of water-saturated sediments; lateral spreading involves the flow of finegrained sediments (clay, silt, or sand).
Pore pressure —The pressure of fluids contained within the pores of a rock, which influences the strength of the rock and is often a factor in dramatic landslides or mudslides.
Rock creep —Very slow mass movement of large rock fragments (pebbles, cobbles, and boulders) in response to the weight of overlying rocks.
Rock fall —Very rapid mass wasting of large rock fragments that have fallen from an exposed cliff.
Slide —A mass movement process in which a fairly coherent mass of rock and/or soil rapidly moves down slope over a discrete surface.
Slumps —A mass movement process in which a fairly coherent mass of rock and/or soil moves down slope over a discrete surface, but curved (concave-upward) surface. Slumps occur much faster than creep but slower than slides.
Talus —Large rock fragments that accumulate at the base of a steep slope, transported there by mass wasting.
Weathering —Biological, chemical, and mechanical attack on rock which breaks it up and alters it at or near the surface of Earth.
after they are emplaced. Trees growing on a slope usually have trunks with sharp curves at their bases. Older trees are bent more than younger ones. All this occurs because the upper layers of soil and weathered rock move gradually down the slope while deeper layers remain relatively fixed. This tips inanimate objects such as power poles. It would tip trees, too, except that they grow toward the sun, keeping the trunk growing vertically, and so a bend develops.
This gradual downslope movement requires years to result in significant transport, but because it occurs over a great portion of the surface of Earth it is responsible for most mass wasting.
Influence of climate
Rivers in the desert regions of the southwestern states form canyons with fairly steep walls, and the buttes and mesas in those regions also have very steep walls. The topography of the eastern states is much more subdued, dominated by rolling hills and gentle slopes. How does rainfall control this contrast in landscape?
Weathering needs water for freezing and thawing, chemical reactions, and growth of roots. Less water means the rate of weathering will be reduced. Also, rainfall affects erosion by water. Less water means the rate at which rivers cut valleys will be reduced. If these were the only factors, however, only the rates would vary; arid regions would weather and erode more slowly than humid ones.
Much of the difference in landscape results from variations in mass wasting. Very steep slopes on dry rock with little or no pore pressure are much more stable than similar slopes on wet rock with high pore pressures. Water adds to the weight trying to break the rock and increases the pore pressure which weakens the rock. Hence the height of a vertical slope which can exist in dry rock is much greater than that in wet rock. Arid climates also have less vegetation to stabilize sediment at the base of a slope, so it is likely to be washed away during the infrequent storms.
What can we do about mass wasting?
In a natural setting, mass wasting presents little threat. Most slopes are relatively stable most of the time. However, when people modify slopes—their gravitational loads, or their water content—they may become unstable and fail. Engineers can study the stresses acting on a slope, test the material of which it is made, make some assumptions about behavior with higher pore pressure, etc., and predict how likely that slope is to fail if the additional load of a house were added to it. This study might conclude that the slope would still be stable, and so the house might be constructed. Later, after it has changed hands a few times, a new owner might decide to put in a swimming pool. A neighbor in the property just downhill, might decide to cut into the slope in order to widen a driveway, or a neighbor just uphill might inadvertently introduce large amounts of water into the ground while trying to maintain a gracious green lawn. Any one of these actions could bring the slope close to where it is unstable. A period of heavy rain could provide the final impetus, and a sudden mass wasting event could occur. To avoid such problems, property owners on such slopes must have their freedoms restricted. One way to accomplish this is to prohibit certain activities through zoning, deed restrictions, or insurance requirements. A less satisfactory means is by threat of litigation.
Resources
BOOKS
Cooke, Ronald U. Geomorphological Hazards in Los Angeles: A Study of Slope and Sediment Problems in a Metropolitan County. London; Boston: Allen & Unwin, 1984.
Costa, John E., and Gerald F. Wieczorek, eds. Debris Flows/Avalanches: Process, Recognition, and Mitigation. Boulder, CO: Geological Society of America, 1987.
Haneberg, William C. and Scott A. Anderson, eds. Clay And Shale Slope Instability. Boulder, CO: Geological Society of America, 1995.
Press, Frank, and Raymond Siever. Understanding Earth. New York: W.H. Freeman and Co., 1994.
Small, R.J., and M.J. Clark Slopes and Weathering. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 1982.
OTHER
Tulane University. “Mass Wasting” <http://www.tulane.edu/~sanelson/geol111/masswasting.htm> (accessed December 3, 2006).
University of Wisconsin–Madison; Department of Geology and Geophysics. “Mountains and Mass Wasting” <http://www.geology.wisc.edu/courses/g112/mass_wasting.html> (accessed December 2, 2006).
Otto H. Muller
Mass Wasting
Mass wasting
Mass wasting, or mass movement, is the process that moves Earth materials down a slope, under the influence of gravity. Mass wasting processes range from violent landslides to imperceptibly slow creep. Mass wasting decreases the steepness of slopes, leaving them more stable. While ice formation or water infiltration in sediments or rocks may aid mass wasting, the driving force is gravity. All mass wasting is a product of one or more of the following mass wasting processes: flow, fall, slide, or slump.
Mass wasting processes
The four processes of mass wasting are distinguished based on the nature of the movement that they produce. Flow involves the rapid downslope movement of a chaotic mass of material. Varying amounts of water may be involved. A mud flow, for example, contains a large amount of water and involves the movement of very fine-grained Earth materials. Fall involves very rapid downslope movement of Earth materials as they descend (free fall) from a cliff. Ignoring wind resistance, falling materials move at 32 ft/sec (9.8 m/sec)—the fastest rate possible in a natural system. Slides result when a mass of material moves downslope, as a fairly coherent mass, along a planar surface. Slumps are similar to slides but occur along a curved (concave-upward) surface and move somewhat more slowly.
Moving mountains to the sea
Consider a chunk of rock currently attached to a jagged outcrop high on a mountain. It will move to the sea as a result of three processes: weathering , mass wasting, and erosion .
On warm days, water from melting snow trickles into a crack which has begun to form between this chunk and the rest of the mountain. Frigid nights make this water freeze again, and its expansion will widen and extend the crack. This and other mechanical, biological, and chemical processes (such as the growth of roots, and the dissolution of the more soluble components of rock) break apart bedrock into transportable fragments. This is called weathering.
Once the crack extends through it and the chunk has been completely separated from the rest of the mountain, it will fall and join the pile of rocks, called talus, beneath it that broke off the mountain previously. This pile of rocks is called a talus pile. This movement is an example of mass wasting, known as a rockfall. As the rocks in the talus pile slip and slide, adjusting to the weight of the overlying rocks, the base of the talus pile extends outward and eventually all the rocks making up the pile will move down slope a little bit to replace those below that also moved downslope. This type of mass movement is known as rock creep, and a talus pile that is experiencing rock creep is called a rock glacier.
In the valley at the bottom of this mountain, there may be a river or a glacier removing material from the base of the talus slope and transporting it away. Removal and transport by a flowing medium (rivers , glaciers , wind) is termed erosion.
These processes occur in many other situations. A river erodes by cutting a valley through layers of rock, transporting that material using flowing water. This erosion would result in deep canyons with vertical walls if the erosion by the river were the only factor. But very high, vertical walls leave huge masses of rock unsupported except by the cohesive strength of the material of which they are made. At some point, the stresses produced by gravity will exceed the strength of the rock and an avalanche (another type of mass movement) will result. This will move some of the material down the slope into the river where erosion will carry it away.
Erosion and mass wasting work together by transporting material away. Erosion produces and steepens slopes, which are then reduced by mass wasting.
Mass wasting in loose aggregates
The steepness of a natural slope depends on the size and shape of the material making up the slope and environmental factors, principally water content. Most people learn about this early in life, playing in a sandbox or on the beach. If you dump dry sand from a bucket it forms a conical hill. The more sand you dump the larger the hill gets, but the slope of the hill stays the same. If you stop dumping sand and start to dig into the bottom of the hill, sand will avalanche down into the hole you are trying to make. Loose, dry sand flows easily and will quickly re-establish its preferred slope whenever you do anything to steepen it. The flow of sand is a simple example of mass wasting.
If sand is moist, the slope of a sand pile can be higher. A sand castle can have vertical walls when it is built of moist sand in the morning, but as the afternoon wears on and the sand dries out, it crumbles and collapses (mass wastes) until a stable slope forms. This is because the water makes the sand more cohesive. With the proper moisture content, there will be both water and air between most of the grains of sand. The boundary between the water and the air has surface tension—the same surface tension that supports water striders or pulls liquids up a capillary tube. In moist sand, surface tension holds the grains together like a weak cement.
However, if sand becomes saturated with water (that is, its pores become completely water-filled as they are in quick sand), then the sand will flow in a process known as lateral spreading. Water-saturated sand flows because the weight of the sand is supported (at least temporarily) by the water, and so the grains are not continuously in contact. Apparently then, the slope of a pile of sand is dependent on water content, and either too little or too much water lowers the stable slope. This illustrates how slope stability is a function of water content.
The steepest slope that a material can have is called the angle of repose. Any loose pile of sediment grains has an angle of repose. As grain size increases, the angle of repose also increases. Talus slopes high on mountain sides may consist of large, angular boulders and can have slopes of up to 45°, whereas fine sand has an angle of repose of 34°. This is the slope that you can see inside a sand-filled hour glass . In nature, however, slopes less than the angle of repose are common because of wind activity and similar environmental processes.
A typical sand dune has a gentle slope on the windward side where erosion by the wind is responsible for the slope. On the leeward side, where sand falls freely, it usually maintains a slope close to the angle of repose. This permits you to run up the windward side where the sand has been tightly packed by the wind, then jump off the crest, land on the leeward slope where you cause, and become part of, a sand avalanche down that slope! So far we discussed loose deposits of particles on land, but similar conditions exist if they are under water, although stable slopes are much gentler. When sudden mass wasting events occur under water, large quantities of material may end up being suspended in the water producing turbidity currents which complicate the picture. Such currents occur because a mass of water with sediment suspended in it is denser than the clear water surrounding it, so it sinks, moving down the slope, eroding as it goes. Still, the initial adjustment of the slope was not the result of these currents, so the mechanism that produces turbidity currents is an example of mass wasting.
Mass wasting in rocks and soils
Most slopes in nature are on materials that are not loose collections of grains. They occur on bedrock or on soils which are bound together by organic material, etc. Yet many of the principles used to explain mass wasting in aggregates still apply. Instead of mass wasting taking place as an avalanche, however, it results from a portion of the slope breaking off and sliding down the hill. We usually call these events landslides, or avalanches, if they are large and damaging, or slumps if they are smaller.
If the gravitational forces acting on a mass of material are greater than its strength, a fracture will develop, separating the mass from the rest of the slope. Usually this fracture will be nearly vertical near the top of the break, curving to a much lower angle near the bottom of the break. Such events can be triggered by an increase in the driving forces (for example, the weight of the slope), a decrease in the strength of the material, or both.
When people build on slopes they often add to the gravitational forces by constructing very heavy things, such as houses and swimming pools. A period of heavy rain can add a lot of weight to a slope, too. Rain may also change the strength of the material making up the slope. As we have seen, saturated soil with no surface tension is much weaker than moist soil. But there is another effect that occurs even in solid rock.
Even very solid rocks contain pores, and many of these pores are interconnected. It is through such pores that water and oil move toward wells. Below the water table, all the pores are filled with water with no surface tension to eliminate. So it might seem that rock down there would not be affected by rainfall at the surface. As the rains come, however, the water table rises, and the additional water increases the pressure in the fluids in the pores below. This increase in pore pressure pushes adjacent rock surfaces apart, reducing the friction between them, which lowers the strength of the rock and makes it easier for fractures to develop. Elevated pore pressures are implicated in many dramatic mass wasting events.
When southern California gets heavy rains, the television news cameras record homes moving down slope in a landslide or mud flow to become rubble at the bottom. Such dramatic examples of mass wasting are impressive, but represent only a fraction of what is all around us everyday.
Soil creep
When mass wasting by flow occurs so slowly that it cannot be observed, it is called creep. Most vegetated slopes in humid climates are subject to soil creep, and there are many indicators that it occurs. Poles and fence posts often tip away from a slope a few years after they are emplaced. Trees growing on a slope usually have trunks with sharp curves at their bases. Older trees are bent more than younger ones. All this occurs because the upper layers of soil and weathered rock move gradually down the slope while deeper layers remain relatively fixed. This tips inanimate objects such as power poles. It would tip trees, too, except that they grow toward the sun , keeping the trunk growing vertically, and so a bend develops.
This gradual downslope movement requires years to result in significant transport, but because it occurs over a great portion of the surface of the Earth it is responsible for most mass wasting.
Influence of climate
Rivers in the desert regions of the southwestern states form canyons with fairly steep walls, and the buttes and mesas in those regions also have very steep walls. The topography of the eastern states is much more subdued, dominated by rolling hills and gentle slopes. How does rainfall control this contrast in landscape? Weathering needs water for freezing and thawing, chemical reactions , and growth of roots. Less water means the rate of weathering will be reduced. Also, rainfall affects erosion by water. Less water means the rate at which rivers cut valleys will be reduced. If these were the only factors, however, only the rates would vary; arid regions would weather and erode more slowly than humid ones.
Much of the difference in landscape results from variations in mass wasting. Very steep slopes on dry rock with little or no pore pressure are much more stable than similar slopes on wet rock with high pore pressures. Water adds to the weight trying to break the rock and increases the pore pressure which weakens the rock. Hence the height of a vertical slope which can exist in dry rock is much greater than that in wet rock. Arid climates also have less vegetation to stabilize sediment at the base of a slope, so it is likely to be washed away during the infrequent storms.
What can we do about mass wasting?
In a natural setting, mass wasting presents little threat. Most slopes are relatively stable most of the time. However, when people modify slopes—their gravitational loads, or their water content—they may become unstable and fail. Engineers can study the stresses acting on a slope, test the material of which it is made, make some assumptions about behavior with higher pore pressure, etc., and predict how likely that slope is to fail if the additional load of a house were added to it. This study might conclude that the slope would still be stable, and so the house might be constructed. Later, after it has changed hands a few times, a new owner might decide to put in a swimming pool. A neighbor in the property just downhill, might decide to cut into the slope in order to widen a driveway, or a neighbor just uphill might inadvertently introduce large amounts of water into the ground while trying to maintain a gracious green lawn. Any one of these actions could bring the slope close to where it is unstable. A period of heavy rain could provide the final impetus, and a sudden mass wasting event could occur. To avoid such problems, property owners on such slopes must have their freedoms restricted. One way to accomplish this is to prohibit certain activities through zoning, deed restrictions, or insurance requirements. A less satisfactory means is by threat of litigation.
Resources
books
Cooke, Ronald U. Geomorphological Hazards in Los Angeles:A Study of Slope and Sediment Problems in a Metropolitan County. London; Boston: Allen & Unwin, 1984.
Costa, John E., and Gerald F. Wieczorek, eds. DebrisFlows/Avalanches: Process, Recognition, and Mitigation. Boulder, CO: Geological Society of America, 1987.
Haneberg, William C. and Scott A. Anderson, eds. Clay AndShale Slope Instability. Boulder, CO: Geological Society of America, 1995.
Press, Frank, and Raymond Siever. Understanding Earth. New York: W.H. Freeman and Co., 1994.
Small, R.J., and M.J. Clark Slopes And Weathering. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 1982.
Otto H. Muller
KEY TERMS
- Angle of repose
—The slope made by a pile of loose material, such as the sand in an hour glass.
- Avalanche
—A mass movement in which a chaotic mass of rock and/or soil very rapidly flows down slope along a discrete surface; an avalanche is a type of flow.
- Creep
—A mass movement that involves gradual downslope movement (flow), too slow to be observed directly, but apparent in many long term observations.
- Erosion
—Movement of material caused by the flow of ice, water, or air, and the modification of the surface of the earth (by forming or deepening valleys, for example) produced by such transport.
- Flow
—A mass movement process in which a chaotic mass of Earth material moves down slope; rates of flow are a function of fluid content of the mass and the grain size the higher the fluid content and finer the particles, the faster the flow.
- Landslide
—A mass movement in which a fairly coherent mass of rock and/or soil rapidly moves down slope along a discrete plane; sometimes used to include all types of moderately rapid mass movements involving flows, falls, or slides.
- Lateral spreading
—Mass wasting of water saturated sediments; lateral spreading involves the flow of finegrained sediments (clay, silt, or sand).
- Pore pressure
—The pressure of fluids contained within the pores of a rock, which influences the strength of the rock and is often a factor in dramatic landslides or mudslides.
- Rock creep
—Very slow mass movement of large rock fragments (pebbles, cobbles, and boulders) in response to the weight of overlying rocks.
- Rock fall
—Very rapid mass wasting of large rock fragments that have fallen from an exposed cliff.
- Slide
—A mass movement process in which a fairly coherent mass of rock and/or soil rapidly moves down slope over a discrete surface.
- Slumps
—A mass movement process in which a fairly coherent mass of rock and/or soil moves down slope over a discrete surface, but curved (concave-upward) surface. Slumps occur much faster than creep but slower than slides.
- Talus
—Large rock fragments that accumulate at the base of a steep slope, transported there by mass wasting.
- Weathering
—Biological, chemical, and mechanical attack on rock which breaks it up and alters it at or near the surface of the Earth.
Mass Wasting
Mass wasting
Mass wasting, or mass movement , is the process that moves Earth materials down a slope, under the influence of gravity . Mass wasting processes range from violent landslides to imperceptibly slow creep . Mass wasting decreases the steepness of slopes, leaving them more stable. While ice formation or water infiltration in sediments or rocks may aid mass wasting, the driving force is gravity. All mass wasting is a product of one or more of the following mass wasting processes: flow, fall, slide, or slump .
The four processes of mass wasting are distinguished based on the nature of the movement that they produce. Flow involves the rapid downslope movement of a chaotic mass of material. Varying amounts of water may be involved. Amud flow , for example, contains a large amount of water and involves the movement of very fine-grained Earth materials. Fall involves very rapid downslope movement of Earth materials as they descend (free fall) from a cliff. Ignoring wind resistance, falling materials accelerate at 32 ft/sec2 (9.8 m/sec2)—the average gravitational force of the earth. Slides result when a mass of material moves downslope, as a fairly coherent mass, along a planar surface. Slumps are similar to slides, but occur along a curved (concave-upward) surface and move somewhat more slowly.
Consider a chunk of rock currently attached to a jagged outcrop high on a mountain. It will move to the sea as a result of three processes: weathering , mass wasting, and erosion .
On warm days, water from melting snow trickles into a crack which has begun to form between this chunk and the rest of the mountain. Frigid nights make this water freeze again, and its expansion will widen and extend the crack. This and other mechanical, biological, and chemical processes (such as the growth of roots, and the dissolution of the more soluble components of rock) break apart bedrock into transportable fragments. This is called weathering.
Once the crack extends through it and the chunk has been completely separated from the rest of the mountain, it will fall and join the pile of rocks, called talus, beneath it that broke off the mountain previously. This pile of rocks is called a talus pile . This movement is an example of mass wasting, known as a rockfall . As the rocks in the talus pile slip and slide, adjusting to the weight of the overlying rocks, the base of the talus pile extends outward and eventually all the rocks making up the pile will move down slope a little bit to replace those below that also moved downslope. This type of mass movement is known as rock creep, and a talus pile that is experiencing rock creep is called a rock glacier.
In the valley at the bottom of this mountain, there may be a river or a glacier removing material from the base of the talus slope and transporting it away. Removal and transport by a flowing medium (rivers, glaciers , wind) is termed erosion.
These processes occur in many other situations. A river erodes by cutting a valley through layers of rock, transporting that material using flowing water. This erosion would result in deep canyons with vertical walls if the erosion by the river were the only factor. Very high, vertical walls, however, leave huge masses of rock unsupported except by the cohesive strength of the material of which they are made. At some point, the stresses produced by gravity will exceed the strength of the rock and an avalanche (another type of mass movement) will result. This will move some of the material down the slope into the river where erosion will carry it away.
Erosion and mass wasting work together by transporting material away. Erosion produces and steepens slopes, which are then reduced by mass wasting. The steepness of a natural slope depends on the size and shape of the material making up the slope and environmental factors, principally water content. Most people learn about this early in life, playing in a sandbox or on the beach. If dry sand is dumped from a bucket, it forms a conical hill. The more sand dumped, the larger the hill becomes, but the slope of the hill stays the same. Digging into the bottom of the hill causes sand to avalanche down into the hole you are trying to make. Loose, dry sand flows easily, and will quickly re-establish its preferred slope whenever anything is done to steepen it. The flow of sand is a simple example of mass wasting.
If sand is moist, the slope of a sand pile can be higher. A sandcastle can have vertical walls of moist sand when it is built in the morning, but, as the afternoon wears on and the sand dries out, it eventually crumbles and collapses (mass wastes) until a stable slope forms. This is because the water makes the sand more cohesive. With the proper moisture content, there will be both water and air between most of the grains of sand. The boundary between the water and the air has surface tension—the same surface tension that supports water striders or pulls liquids up a capillary tube. In moist sand, surface tension holds the grains together like a weak cement.
However, if sand becomes saturated with water (that is, its pores become completely water-filled as they are in quick sand), then the sand will flow in a process known as lateral spreading. Water-saturated sand flows because the weight of the sand is supported (at least temporarily) by the water, and so the grains are not continuously in contact. The slope of a pile of sand is dependent on water content, and either too little or too much water lowers the stable slope. This illustrates how slope stability is a function of water content.
The steepest slope that a material can have is called the angle of repose. Any loose pile of sediment grains has an angle of repose. As grain size increases, the angle of repose also increases. Talus slopes high on mountain sides may consist of large, angular boulders and can have slopes of up to 45°, whereas fine sand has an angle of repose of 34°. This is the slope that you can see inside a sand-filled hourglass. In nature, however, slopes less than the angle of repose are common because of wind activity and similar environmental processes.
A typical sand dune has a gentle slope on the windward side where erosion by the wind is responsible for the slope. On the leeward side, where sand falls freely, it usually maintains a slope close to the angle of repose. As with loose deposits of particles on land, similar conditions exist if they are under water, although stable slopes are much gentler. When sudden mass wasting events occur under water, large quantities of material may end up being suspended in the water producing turbidity currents that complicate the picture. Such currents occur because a mass of water with sediment suspended in it is denser than the clear water surrounding it, so it sinks, moving down the slope, eroding as it goes. Still, the initial adjustment of the slope was not the result of these currents, so the mechanism that produces turbidity currents is an example of mass wasting.
Most slopes in nature are on materials that are not loose collections of grains. They occur on bedrock or on soils that are bound together by organic or other material. Yet, many of the principles used to explain mass wasting in aggregates still apply. Instead of mass wasting taking place as an avalanche, however, it results from a portion of the slope breaking off and sliding down the hill. These events are usually called landslides, or avalanches—if they are large and damaging—or slumps if they are smaller.
If the gravitational forces acting on a mass of material are greater than its strength, a fracture will develop, separating the mass from the rest of the slope. Usually this fracture will be nearly vertical near the top of the break, curving to a much lower angle near the bottom of the break. Such events can be triggered by an increase in the driving forces (for example, the weight of the slope), a decrease in the strength of the material, or both.
Even solid rocks contain pores, and many of these pores are interconnected. It is through such pores that water and oil move toward wells. Below the water table , all the pores are filled with water with no surface tension to eliminate. It might seem that rocks down there would not be affected by rainfall at the surface. As the rains come, however, the water table rises, and the additional water increases the pressure in the fluids in the pores below. This increase in pore pressure pushes adjacent rock surfaces apart, reducing the friction between them, which lowers the strength of the rock and makes it easier for fractures to develop. Elevated pore pressures are implicated in many dramatic mass wasting events.
When mass wasting by flow occurs so slowly that it cannot be observed, it is called creep. Most vegetated slopes in humid climates are subject to soil creep, and there are many indicators that it occurs. Poles and fence posts often tip away from a slope a few years after they are placed. Trees growing on a slope usually have trunks with sharp curves at their bases. Older trees are bent more than younger ones. All this occurs because the upper layers of soil and weathered rock move gradually down the slope while deeper layers remain relatively fixed. This tips inanimate objects such as power poles. It would tip trees, too, except that they grow toward the Sun , keeping the trunk growing vertically, and so a bend develops.
This gradual downslope movement requires years to result in significant transport, but because it occurs over a great portion of the surface of the earth it is responsible for most mass wasting.
See also Catastrophic mass movements