In humid climatic regions if slopes are steep, masses of water-saturated soil, overburden, or weak bedrock may slide downslope during a period of a few hours in the form of earthflow.
Shallow earthflows, affecting only the soil and residual overburden, are common on sod-covered slopes that have been saturated by heavy rains. An earthflow may affect a few square yards, or it may cover an area of several acres. If the bedrock is rich in clay, earthflow sometimes include millions of tons of bedrock, moving by plastic flowage like a great mass of thick mud.
A special variety of earth flowage characteristic of arctic regions is solifluction (from Latin words meaning soil and to flow. In late spring and early summer, when thawing has penetrated the upper few feet, soil is fully saturated with water which cannot escape downward because of the underlying impermeable frozen mass (permafrost).
Mud flow. One of the most spectacular forms of mass wasting is the mudflow, a mud stream of fluid consistency, which pours down canyons in mountainous regions. In deserts, where vegetation does not protect the mountain, soils, violent local storms produce rain much faster than it can be absorbed by the soil. As the water runs down the slopes it forms a thin mud, which flows down to the canyon floors. Following stream courses, the mud continues to flow until it becomes so thickened that it must stop. Great boulders are carried along, buoyed up in the mud.
Mudflows also occur on the slopes of erupting volcanoes. Freshly fallen volcanic ash and dust is turned into mud by heavy rains and flows down the slopes of the volcano. Down slope movement of regolith or bedrock is known widely as landslide. Rolling of single masses of rocks from a steep cliff is known as rock fall Great masses of bedrocks sliding downward from a high cliff is known as slump.
The weathering the mass wasting aid in denudation of the earth surface. The different erosional agents act upon the earth's surface and they produce an orderly sequence of the land forms. The running water or river is the dominant process modifying the earth surfaces.
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