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Temporally, cycles may range from minutes to weeks depending on their driver. The action of wet-dry cycles is key to the hot spring hypothesis for the origin of life, which suggests protocells developed through a multistep process in which spontaneously formed lipid vesicles incorporate polymers that grow through condensation reactions.
Cycles of wetting and drying cause soil particles to be abraded to a finer size, as does the physical rubbing of material as it is moved by wind, water, and gravity. Organisms may reduce parent material size and create crevices and pores through the mechanical action of plant roots and the digging activity of animals. [28]
The materials left after the rock breaks down combine with organic material to create soil. Many of Earth's landforms and landscapes are the result of weathering, erosion and redeposition. Weathering is a crucial part of the rock cycle; sedimentary rock, the product of weathered rock, covers 66% of the Earth's continents and much of the ocean ...
Deposition is the geological process in which sediments, soil and rocks are added to a landform or landmass. Wind, ice, water, and gravity transport previously weathered surface material, which, at the loss of enough kinetic energy in the fluid, is deposited, building up layers of sediment.
An essential feature for the formation of laterite is the repetition of wet and dry seasons. [15] Rocks are leached by percolating rain water during the wet season; the resulting solution containing the leached ions is brought to the surface by capillary action during the dry season. [15]
Solidified lava flow in Hawaii Sedimentary layers in Badlands National Park, South Dakota Metamorphic rock, Nunavut, Canada. Geology (from Ancient Greek γῆ (gê) 'earth' and λoγία () 'study of, discourse') [1] [2] is a branch of natural science concerned with the Earth and other astronomical objects, the rocks of which they are composed, and the processes by which they change over time. [3]
The inorganic cycle begins with the production of carbonic acid (H 2 CO 3) from rainwater and gaseous carbon dioxide. [6] Due to this process, normal rain has a pH of around 5.6. [7] Carbonic acid is a weak acid, but over long timescales, it can dissolve silicate rocks
Soils that have smaller pore sizes, such as clay, have lower infiltration capacity and slower infiltration rates than soils that have large pore sizes, such as sands. One exception to this rule is when the clay is present in dry conditions. In this case, the soil can develop large cracks which lead to higher infiltration capacity. [3]