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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 April 2016
Intermediate and high velocity clouds are produced in a Galactic fountain as a result of Rayleigh-Taylor instabilities that grow at the interface separating the cool descending gas and the hot ascending gas within the fountain flow. It is proposed here that there is no need to introduce any initial perturbation to the system in order to trigger such instabilities. They will arise naturally as a result of the difference in the adiabatic parameters above and below the interface. A three-dimensional study of the unstable layer and the resulting cloud formation is presented.