Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
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.
Saprolite (from Greek σαπρος (sapros) = putrid + λιθος (lithos) = rock) is a chemically weathered rock (literally, it means "rotten rock"). More intense weathering results in a continuous transition from saprolite to laterite. Saprolites form in the lower zones of soil horizons [1] and represent deep weathering of the bedrock surface ...
The grazing activity of these ecosystem engineers disrupts the limestone, resulting in the weathering and the subsequent formation of soil. [113] They have a significant effect on the region: the population of snails is estimated to process between 0.7 and 1.1 metric ton per hectare per year of limestone in the Negev desert. [113]
This figure describes the geological aspects and processes of the carbonate silicate cycle, within the long-term carbon cycle. The carbonate–silicate geochemical cycle, also known as the inorganic carbon cycle, describes the long-term transformation of silicate rocks to carbonate rocks by weathering and sedimentation, and the transformation of carbonate rocks back into silicate rocks by ...
As a result, they occur as families of joints that form recognizable joint sets. Typically, exposures or outcrops within a given area or region of study contains two or more sets of systematic joints, each with its own distinctive properties such as orientation and spacing, that intersect to form well-defined joint systems. [2] [4]
In the winter, melting snow, in the form of water, seeps into the cracks and then freezes at night. When water freezes, it expands by almost 10%, prying open the cracks bit by bit, making them even wider, similar to the way a pothole forms in a paved road. In addition to frost wedging, rain is another weathering process causing erosion.
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.
Rock can also form in the absence of a substantial pressure gradient as material that condensed from a protoplanetary disk, without ever undergoing any transformations in the interior of a large object such as a planet or moon. Astrophysicists classify this as a fourth type of rock: primitive rock. This type is common in asteroids and meteorites.