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A gully is a landform created by running water, eroding sharply into soil, typically on a hillside. Gullies resemble large ditches or small valleys, but are metres to tens of metres in depth and width. When the gully formation is in process, the water flow rate can be substantial, which causes the significant deep cutting action into soil. Gullying or gully erosion is the process by which gullies are formed. Hillsides are more prone to gullying when they are cleared of vegetation, through deforestation, over-grazing or other means. The eroded soil is easily carried by the flowing water after being dislodged from the ground, normally when rainfall falls during short, intense storms such as during thunderstorms. A gully may grow in length by means of headward (i.e. upstream) erosion at a knick point. This erosion can result from interflow as well as surface runoff. Gullies reduce the productivity of farmland where they incise into the land, and produce sediment that may clog downstream waterbodies. Because of this, much effort is invested into the study of gullies within the scope of geomorphology, in the prevention of gully erosion, and in restoration of gullied landscapes. The total soil loss from gully formation and subsequent downstream river sedimentation can be sizeable. ==Hydraulic mining== Artificial gullies are formed during hydraulic mining when jets or streams of water are projected onto soft alluvial deposits to extract gold or tin ore. The remains of such mining methods are very visible landform features in old goldfields such as in California and northern Spain. The badlands at Las Medulas for example, were created during the Roman period by hushing or hydraulic mining of the gold-rich alluvium with water supplied by numerous aqueducts tapping nearby rivers. Each aqueduct produced large gullies below by erosion of the soft deposits. The effluvium was carefully washed with smaller streams of water to extract the nuggets and gold dust. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「gully」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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