Denudation, weathering and mass wasting - Fundamentals of the Physical Environment - page 298

Plate 13.10 Three aspects of glacio-karst solution geomorphology in the western Yorkshire Dales: (a) Karren (grikes) etched
into the surface of a clint on limestone pavement below Ingleborough, (b), a solution doline below Pen-y-ghent and (c) the floor
of a former underground cavern exposed by cavern roof collapse at Goredale Scar.
Photos: Ken Addison

continue. With original rock mass strength destroyed,
those products which are not washed out become prime
targets of mass wasting. Mass wasting is a general term
for a variety of slope denudation processes operating
under static gravity load, rather than by water and ice
moving as discrete bodies. It is preferred here to mass
movement , which implies the coherent movement of
rock and soil en masse. Most movements occur through
compound translation failure - with material properties
and forms of failure changing radically during a single
event. This may be apparent in the resultant landform and
is important if we are to understand and manage slope
failure. Mass wasting and slopes are not restricted to areas
lacking formal designations such as fluvial , glacial ,
periglacial , coastal environments, etc. They are found
everywhere and behave according to universal rules.
Mass wasting also occurs in more formally recognized
environments, and every landform is a composite of slope
forms. It is not surprising that producing schemes of
slope classification and evolution is a busy industry!

Plate 13.11 Tower and cockpit karst on the Li river, south of
Guilin in Guangxi Province, south-east China. Intense and
prolonged tropical solution weathering etches karst landforms
hundreds of metres deep in thick limestone.
Photo: Peter Bull