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Rockfall in Utah, USA. Favourable geology and climate are the principal causal mechanisms of rockfall, factors that include intact condition of the rock mass, discontinuities within the rockmass, weathering susceptibility, ground and surface water, freeze-thaw, root-wedging, and external stresses. A tree may be blown by the wind, and this ...
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. [2] The presence of water usually aids mass wasting, but the water is not abundant enough to be regarded as a transporting medium.
When trapped water in an aquifer is surrounded by layers of impermeable rock or clay, which apply positive pressure to the water, it is known as an artesian aquifer. [1] If a well were to be sunk into an artesian aquifer, water in the well-pipe would rise to a height corresponding to the point where hydrostatic equilibrium is reached. [1]
The definition of the water table is the surface where the pressure head is equal to atmospheric pressure (where gauge pressure = 0). Unsaturated conditions occur above the water table where the pressure head is negative (absolute pressure can never be negative, but gauge pressure can) and the water that incompletely fills the pores of the ...
A diagram of various depositional environments. In geology, depositional environment or sedimentary environment describes the combination of physical, chemical, and biological processes associated with the deposition of a particular type of sediment and, therefore, the rock types that will be formed after lithification, if the sediment is preserved in the rock record.
The efficiency of freeze-thaw processes in scree production is a subject of ongoing debate. Many researchers believe that ice formation in large open fracture systems cannot generate high enough pressures to force the fracturing apart of parent rocks, and instead suggest that the water and ice simply flow out of the fractures as pressure builds ...
A rockfall protection embankment is an earthwork built in elevation with respect to the ground to intercept falling rock fragments before elements at risk such as roads and buildings are reached. This term is widely used in the rockfall community but the terms bunds and walls are sometimes used as alternatives.
The very shallow flow of water in the subsurface (the upper 3 m) is pertinent to the fields of soil science, agriculture, and civil engineering, as well as to hydrogeology. The general flow of fluids (water, hydrocarbons, geothermal fluids, etc.) in deeper formations is also a concern of geologists, geophysicists, and petroleum geologists.