Raindrops from...
http://www.flickr.com/photos/allyrose18/210964120/There is a dark side to even the humble raindrop. A single drop is harmless, but when billions of raindrops from a cloudburst fall on bare soil they strike like billions of tiny hammers, dislodging tons of soil per acre which is carried away by surface runoff.
This process, called splash erosion, is of critical importance to agriculture... In addition, rain splash has played a major role over geologic time in sculpting the features of the mountains and cliffs of the world, particularly those in arid and semi-arid regions... Individual raindrops, which travel at speeds up to 20 miles per hour, can splash soil particles up to five feet horizontally and two feet in the air.
Recent raindrop research at Vanderbilt University
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