Whether it be small and slow, or large and quick, mass wasting can be a major cause of loss of property and sometimes even life. According to Keller and DeVecchio, mass wasting is the movement of earth materials down a slope.(217) Mass wasting can refer to rockfalls, debris flows and avalanches, but for the sake of time, I'll mainly be speaking about landslides.
A landslide can be classified as either falling, sliding, slumping, flow or creep:
Sliding: As large rocks travel downhill, they loosen up other smaller rocks, rushing everything on the way down
Falling: Rocks are falling from the face of a cliff
Slumping: Rocks or soil is falling down a curved slope
Flow: Particles are moving downhill in a large, mixed up mass, like avalanches and earth flows
Creep: An extremely slow rate of flowage
