As a stream flows faster, it can carry larger and larger particles. At flood stage, rivers flow much faster and do more erosion because the added water increases the stream’s velocity. Sand, silt and clay size particles generally make up the suspended load for a stream (Figure 10.2).

Flowing streams pick up and transport weathered materials by eroding sediments from their banks. Streams also carry ions and ionic compounds that dissolve easily in the water. Sediments are carried as the following loads: dissolved, suspended, and bed. A dissolved load is composed of ions in solution.

Sediment is eroded from the landscape, transported by river systems, and eventually deposited in a lake or the sea. The transportation process is initiated on the land surface when raindrops result in sheet erosion. Rills, gullies, streams, and rivers then act as conduits for sediment movement.

Erosion breaks rocks down further and then moves them. Forces like wind and water move the rock pieces. They mix with matter like sand to become sediment. Weathering and erosion help shape Earth’s surface.

Liquid water is the major agent of erosion on Earth. Rain, rivers, floods, lakes, and the ocean carry away bits of soil and sand and slowly wash away the sediment. Rainfall produces four types of soil erosion: splash erosion, sheet erosion, rill erosion, and gully erosion.

Soil erosion has both short-term and long-term damage. Short-term damage of erosion includes the occurrence of mudslides after heavy rains which is called landslide.

The more erodible the soil, the greater the rate of erosion and the shorter the distance to maximum soil movement. Major factors that affect the amount of erosion are soil cloddiness, surface roughness, wind speed, soil moisture, field size, and vegetative cover.

The three main forces that cause erosion are water, wind, and ice. Water is the main cause of erosion on Earth. Although water may not seem powerful at first, it is one of the most powerful forces on the planet.

Land-building is stronger than erosion. Land building refers to breaking up the land and using it for different purposes. Erosion can be caused by water or wind. Generally, land-building opens up lands to erosion.

The resulting erosional landforms include striations, cirques, glacial horns, arêtes, trim lines, U-shaped valleys, roches moutonnées, overdeepenings and hanging valleys. U-shaped, or trough, valley: U-shaped valleys are created by mountain glaciers.

It ranges from tens of thousands to a few million years. This result implies that while the glacier will respond to short‐term variations (10–100 years), it will take much longer (i.e., 10 kyr to 10 Myr) for glacial erosion to reequilibrate with rock uplift rates in response to changes in climate forcings.

Glaciers cause erosion in two main ways: plucking and abrasion. They freeze to the bottom of the glacier and are carried away by the flowing ice. Abrasion is the process in which a glacier scrapes underlying rock. The sediments and rocks frozen in the ice at the bottom and sides of a glacier act like sandpaper.

Processes of Glacial Erosion Glacial erosion involves the removal and transport of bedrock or sediment by three main processes: quarrying (also known as plucking), abrasion, and melt water erosion.

Glaciers are sheets of solidly packed ice and snow that cover large areas of land. They are formed in areas where the general temperature is usually below freezing. This can be near the North and South poles, and also on very high ground, such as large mountains.

Barriers of sand and rock positioned at the base of glaciers would stop ice sheets sliding and collapsing, and prevent warm water from eroding the ice from beneath, according to research published this week in the Cryosphere journal, from the European Geosciences Union.

The general average rates of erosion suggested are in the range of 0.07–30 mm a− 1 for valley glaciers.

A glacier’s weight, combined with its gradual movement, can drastically reshape the landscape over hundreds or even thousands of years. The ice erodes the land surface and carries the broken rocks and soil debris far from their original places, resulting in some interesting glacial landforms.

Melting ice is bad news for several reasons: Meltwater from the ice sheets and glaciers flows into the ocean, causing sea levels to rise. This can lead to flooding, habitat destruction, and other problems. Ice reflects the Sun’s energy better than than land or water.

It is hard to see glacial erosion in action because glaciers move at an extremely slow pace. Some of the fastest glaciers can move 30 meters a day,…

The causes of widespread retreat are varied, but the underlying primary causes are a warming climate and the effects of increased soot and dust in areas of higher agricultural and industrial activity.

As National Geographic showed us in 2013, sea levels would rise by 216 feet if all the land ice on the planet were to melt. This would dramatically reshape the continents and drown many of the world’s major cities.

In 2019, a study projected that in low emission scenario, sea level will rise 30 centimeters by 2050 and 69 centimetres by 2100, relative to the level in 2000. In high emission scenario, it will be 34 cm by 2050 and 111 cm by 2100.