Cavitation erosion of bedrock channels

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Developing the experiments for this article had been in my mind for several years, not least because cavitation has an almost mystical aura such that many papers over several decades have suggested it is important for erosion of natural bedrock channels. However, this supposition was purely speculative and unsupported by data. A simple consideration of the physics, before we designed the experiments, demonstrated that such importance was unlikely. Rather than just demonstrating that cavitation is unlikely to be a substantive factor in bedrock channel erosion, the paper does suggest the kind of channels and locations worldwide where cavitation erosion might be identified and provides pointers for future laboratory- based research into cavitation.

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