Wearing Down and Building Up There is a name for the process in which natural forces move weathered rock and soil from one place to another. This is what's called erosion. There are a couple of agents of erosion, and those agents are gravity, running water, glaciers, waves, and wind. An agent is a force or material that makes a change in Earth's surface, based on geology.
The material that is moved by erosion is called sediment. Sediment may contain pieces of rock or soil, or even remains of living things such as animals and also plants. Weathering and erosion both produce sediment. Where the agents of erosion, deposit, or lay down sediment is called deposition. Deposition is what changes the shape of the land by setting down the sediment in a different area. Weathering, erosion, and deposition all work together in a cycle that breaks down and builds up Earth's surface. It is a never-ending cycle, because the land eventually erodes away, although then the sediment deposits in another area. Sediment will always deposit, it'll just be somewhere else. |
Mass Movement If you've ever tried rolling down a grass hill with someone giving you a gentle push on your way down, then rolling down the hill by yourself, then you have experienced gravity acting on you. Gravity is the force that moves rock and other material down hill. Gravity does this because the Earth has a gravitational pull that pulls anything down towards it. For example, if you jump, you will come back down. That's gravity that pulls you back to Earth. Gravity is what causes mass movement any one of several processes that move sediment downhill. The different types of mass movement are landslides, mudflows, slump, and creep. It is possible for mass movement to be at any pace.
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Gravitational Pull Image
Earth has a gravitational pull that makes everything on this planet such as sediment and rock be pushed onto the ground, and pulled to the center of the earth inside earth's core. Everything stays to the ground, and that's why what goes up, must come back down.