10 Facts About Mass wasting

Mass wasting, known as mass movement, is a general term for the movement of rock or soil down slopes under the force of gravity.

Types of mass wasting include creep, solifluction, rockfalls, debris flows, and landslides, each with its own characteristic features, and taking place over timescales from seconds to hundreds of years.

Mass wasting occurs on both terrestrial and submarine slopes, and has been observed on Earth, Mars, Venus, Jupiter's moons Io, and on many other bodies in the Solar System.

Mass wasting is a general term for any process of erosion that is driven by gravity and in which the transported soil and rock is not entrained in a moving medium, such as water, wind, or ice.

Many forms of mass wasting are recognized, each with its own characteristic features, and taking place over timescales from seconds to hundreds of years.

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Submarine mass wasting is particularly common along glaciated coastlines where glaciers are retreating and great quantities of sediments are being released.

Mass wasting is a common phenomenon throughout the Solar System, occurring where volatile materials are lost from a regolith.

Such mass wasting has been observed on Mars, Io, Triton, and possibly Europa and Ganymede.

Mass wasting occurs in the equatorial regions of Mars, where stopes of soft sulfate-rich sediments are steepened by wind erosion.

Mass wasting affects geomorphology, most often in subtle, small-scale ways, but occasionally more spectacularly.