Within the deposition and ablation events, an additional phenomenon of partial ablation events sometimes occurs, with signatures in both ∆P (t) and microscopy video imaging. A partial ablation event occurs when material downstream from the junction is removed from the device separately from the main clog. One of these events occurs at t = 116s in Fig. , which corresponds to 0:22-0:23 in the attached video. A portion of deposited gel, downstream of the main deposit, breaks off of the channel wall and is eluted from the device. This partial removal results in a small dip in ∆P (t) for 1s ( 5s in real time). Then, the gel deposit continues to grow and obstruct the channel, requiring higher driving pressures. The magnitude of this dip is very small in comparison to the overall pressure increase, 5 mbar versus 200 mbar in Fig. . Additionally, partial ablation events frequently occur at the same point within a particular channel, suggesting that variations in channel geometry and gel attachment may also play a role. At the same time, channel wall roughness is not required for gel deposition (SI Fig. ). This result is similar to deposition seen in other contexts, like colloidal deposition inside smooth metal pipes .