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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.
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.
Hydraulic action, most generally, is the ability of moving water (flowing or waves) to dislodge and transport rock particles.This includes a number of specific erosional processes, including abrasion, at facilitated erosion, such as static erosion where water leaches salts and floats off organic material from unconsolidated sediments, and from chemical erosion more often called chemical ...
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.
Changes in temperature can also cause water to freeze. The forces produced by water freezing can be as great as 2.1 × 10 5 kPa, which can split rocks apart, wedge rocks upward in the soil, and heave and churn soil material. Chemical weathering: the principal agent is percolating rainwater charged with carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Parent ...
The process of weathering breaks down the rocks and soils into smaller fragments and then into their constituent substances. [20] During rains precipitation, the water droplets absorb and dissolve carbon dioxide from the surrounding air. This causes the rainwater to be slightly acidic, which aids the erosive properties of water.
Organisms which cause acid mine drainage can thrive in waters with pH very close to zero. Negative pH [11] occurs when water evaporates from already acidic pools thereby increasing the concentration of hydrogen ions. About half of the coal mine discharges in Pennsylvania have pH under 5. [12]
Haloclasty (also called salt weathering) is a type of physical weathering caused by the growth and thermal expansion of salt crystals. The process starts when saline water seeps into deep cracks and evaporates depositing salt crystals. When the rocks are then heated, the crystals will expand putting pressure on the surrounding rock which will ...