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Physical weathering, also called mechanical weathering or disaggregation, is the class of processes that causes the disintegration of rocks without chemical change. Physical weathering involves the breakdown of rocks into smaller fragments through processes such as expansion and contraction, mainly due to temperature changes.
Spalling is a common mechanism of rock weathering, and occurs at the surface of a rock when there are large shear stresses under the surface. This form of mechanical weathering can be caused by freezing and thawing, unloading, thermal expansion and contraction, or salt deposition.
Frost weathering is a collective term for several mechanical weathering processes induced by stresses created by the freezing of water into ice. The term serves as an umbrella term for a variety of processes, such as frost shattering, frost wedging, and cryofracturing.
Abrasion is a process of weathering that occurs when material being transported wears away at a surface over time, commonly occurring with ice and glaciers. The primary process of abrasion is physical weathering. Its the process of friction caused by scuffing, scratching, wearing down, marring, and rubbing away of materials.
Denudation incorporates the mechanical, biological, and chemical processes of erosion, weathering, and mass wasting. Denudation can involve the removal of both solid particles and dissolved material. These include sub-processes of cryofracture, insolation weathering, slaking , salt weathering, bioturbation , and anthropogenic impacts.
Grus is an accumulation of angular, coarse-grained fragments (particles of sand and gravel) resulting from the granular disintegration by the processes of chemical and mechanical weathering of crystalline rocks (most notably granitoids) generally in an arid or semiarid region. [1] Grus sand, when cemented into a sandstone, will form an arkose.
Many explanations have been proposed for honeycomb and other cavernous weathering. These explanations include marine abrasion; wind corrosion; mechanical weathering resulting from short-term temperature variations; chemical weathering of the interior of the rock (core-softening) under a protective crust (case-hardening) followed by mechanical removal of the softened material; biogeochemical ...
Exfoliating slabs of granite, on Half Dome in Yosemite National Park, USA. Exfoliating granite is a granite undergoing exfoliation, or onion skin weathering (desquamation).The external delaminated layers of granite are gradually produced by the cyclic variations of temperature at the surface of the rock in a process also called spalling.