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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.
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Tropical weathering is a prolonged process of chemical weathering which produces a wide variety in the thickness, grade, chemistry and ore mineralogy of the resulting soils. The majority of the land area containing laterites is between the tropics of Cancer and Capricorn .
Ferrallitisation is the process in which rock is changed into a soil consisting of clay and sesquioxides, in the form of hydrated oxides of iron and aluminium.In humid tropical areas, with consistently high temperatures and rainfall for all or most of the year, chemical weathering rapidly breaks down the rock.
Case hardening is a weathering phenomenon of rock surface induration.It is observed commonly in: felsic alkaline rocks, such as nepheline syenite, phonolite and trachyte; pyroclastic rocks, as pyroclastic flow deposit, fine air-fall deposits and vent-filling pyroclastic deposits; sedimentary rocks, as sandstone and mudstone.
Chemical weathering of rocks that leads to the formation of Liesegang rings typically involves the diffusion of oxygen in subterranean water into pore space containing soluble ferrous iron. [7] Liesegang rings usually cut across layers of stratification and occur in many types of rock, some of which more commonly include sandstone and chert. [3]
The difference in chemical weathering time can span millions of years. For example, quickest to weather of the common igneous minerals is apatite, which reaches complete weathering in an average of 10 5.48 years, and slowest to weather is quartz, which weathers fully in 10 8.59 years. [5]
The rate of weathering is sensitive to factors that change how much land is exposed. These factors include sea level , topography , lithology , and vegetation changes. [ 4 ] Furthermore, these geomorphic and chemical changes have worked in tandem with solar forcing, whether due to orbital changes or stellar evolution, to determine the global ...