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- Unconformities form mainly on sedimentary rocks or between sedimentary and other rock types (metamorphic or plutonic). However, it can occur in layered volcanic (pyroclastic deposits and lava flows). The main driving force is erosion and sometimes cessation of deposition followed by an episode of sedimentation to form younger strata.
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Apr 23, 2024 · Erosion is the geological process in which earthen materials are worn away and transported by natural forces such as wind or water. A similar process, weathering, breaks down or dissolves rock, but does not involve movement.
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What is erosion in geology?
- Overview
- Water erosion
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erosion, removal of surface material from Earth’s crust, primarily soil and rock debris, and the transportation of the eroded materials by natural agencies (such as water or wind) from the point of removal.
The broadest application of the term erosion embraces the general wearing down and molding of all landforms on Earth’s surface, including the weathering of rock in its original position, the transport of weathered material, and erosion caused by wind action and fluvial, marine, and glacial processes. This broad definition is more correctly called denudation, or degradation, and includes mass-movement processes. A narrow and somewhat limiting definition of erosion excludes the transport of eroded material by natural agencies, but the exclusion of the transport phenomenon makes the distinction between erosion and weathering very vague. Erosion, therefore, includes the transportation of eroded or weathered material from the point of degradation (such as the side of a mountain or other landform) but not the deposition of material at a new site. The complementary actions of erosion and deposition or sedimentation operate through the geomorphic processes of wind, moving water, and ice to alter existing landforms and create new landforms.
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Moving water is the most important natural erosional agent. The wastage of the seacoast, or coastal erosion, is brought about mainly by the action of sea waves but also, in part, by the disintegration or degradation of sea cliffs by atmospheric agents such as rain, frost, and tidal scour. Sea wave erosion is accomplished primarily by hydraulic pressure, the impact of waves striking the shore, and by the abrasion (wearing, grinding, or rubbing away by friction) by sand and pebbles agitated incessantly by the water (see wave-cut platform). Wave impact and hydraulic action are usually most devastating to human-made coastal features such as breakwaters or moles. The impact and hydraulic action of storm waves are the most significant upon shores composed of highly jointed or bedded rock, which are vulnerable to quarrying, the hydraulic plucking of blocks of rock. The abrasive action of sand and pebbles washed against shorelines is probably the most significant wave erosional activity. Particles are dragged back and forth by wave action, abrading the bedrock along the coast and abrading each other, gradually wearing pebbles into sand. Wave erosion creates retrograde, or retreating, shorelines with sea cliffs, wave-cut benches at the base of the sea cliffs, and sea arches—curved or rectangularly shaped archways that result from different rates of erosion due to varied bedrock resistance. Besides the back-and-forth transportation of materials by wave action, sediments are transported by the lateral movement of waves after they wash ashore (beach drifting) or by shallow-water transport just offshore, known as longshore currents. These transportational movements lead to deposition and the formation of prograde, or advancing, shorelines, bars, spits, bayhead beaches (a bayhead beach is formed between two headlands), and barrier beaches (a barrier beach parallels the shore).
In rivers and estuaries, the erosion of banks is caused by the scouring action of the moving water, particularly in times of flood and, in the case of estuaries, also by the tidal flow on the ebb tide when river and tidewater combine in their erosive action. This scouring action of the moving water entrains (that is, draws in and transports) sediments within the river or stream load. These entrained sediments become instruments of erosion as they abrade one another in suspended transport or as they abrade other rock and soil as they are dragged along the river bottom, progressively entraining additional sediments as long as the river’s volume and velocity of the stream continues to increase. As the velocity of the river decreases, the suspended sediments will be deposited, creating landforms such as broad alluvial fans, floodplains, sandbars, and river deltas. The land surface unaffected by rivers and streams is subjected to a continuous process of erosion by the action of rain, snowmelt, and frost, the resulting detritus (organic debris) and sediment being carried into the rivers and thence to the ocean.
Glacial erosion occurs in two principal ways: through the abrasion of surface materials as the ice grinds over the ground (much of the abrasive action being attributable to the debris embedded in the ice along its base); and by the quarrying or plucking of rock from the glacier bed. The eroded material is transported until it is deposited or until the glacier melts.
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In some arid and desert tracts, wind has an important effect in bringing about the erosion of rocks by driving sand, and the surface of sand dunes not held together and protected by vegetation is subject to erosion and change by the drifting of blown sand. This action erodes material by deflation—the removal of small loose particles—and by sandblas...
- The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
Faults are generally caused under the influence of stresses acting upon the rocks of the crust of the earth from within. Any rock on or below the crust may withstand all the operating stresses up to a limit, which depends upon its cohesive strength and internal friction.
Aug 28, 2024 · Fault, in geology, a planar or gently curved fracture in the rocks of Earth’s crust, where compressional or tensional forces cause relative displacement of the rocks on the opposite sides of the fracture.
- The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
Weathering, erosion, mass-wasting, and depositional processes occur at or near the Earth‟s surface and produce changes to the landscape that influence surface and subsurface topography and landform development.
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Human structures, such as coastal harbors and jetties, can simultaneously trap sediments, decreasing erosion, while increasing erosion rates on adjacent coastlines. Damming rivers and extracting water from freshwater ecosystems for human use can decrease erosion, altering habitats and ecosystems.
Fracturing is common in rocks near the surface, either in volcanic rocks that have shrunk on cooling (Figure 10.1.3a), or in other rocks that have been exposed by erosion and have expanded (Figure 10.3.1). Fractures, by definition, do not displace rock. There is no movement on a fracture plane.
