EARTH121 Lecture Notes - Lecture 12: Earthflow, Quick Clay, Debris Flow

• School: University of Waterloo
• Department: Earth Sciences
• Course: EARTH121
• Professor: John Johnston

Document Summary

All landslides are mass movements, but not all mass movements are landslides. Lecture 12: could be solid rock, sediment etc. Mass wasting downslope motion of earth materials by gravity: natural hazard. Slopes are unstable (change continuously) and can cause damage to living things: important to the rock cycle. A significant agent of landscape change: driven by gravity alone, aided by human activity. Can also be due to adding more sediment to an area. Removing material allows other spheres to interact with geosphere (ex. Mass wasting can be very slow: indicators: tilting of objects such as poles, cracked features in homes. Road cracks: creep: when soil freezes it moves perpendicular to slope during freezing and when it thaws it moves down. Mass wasting can be fast: rock falls due to gravity reach terminal speeds and are extremely fast. Only rocks fall, debris = avalanche or slide. Intact material but slide due to plane of weakness.