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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.
Water and wind erosion are the two primary causes of land degradation; combined, they are responsible for about 84% of the global extent of degraded land, making excessive erosion one of the most significant environmental problems worldwide. [9]: 2 [10]: 1 [11]
Storms can cause erosion hundreds of times faster than normal weather. Before-and-after comparisons can be made using data gathered by manual surveying, laser altimeter, or a GPS unit mounted on an ATV. [16] Remote sensing data such as Landsat scenes can be used for large scale and multi year assessments of coastal erosion.
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 can crush smaller grains or particles and remove grains or multigrain fragments, but the removal of larger fragments is classified as plucking (or quarrying), the other major erosion source from glaciers. Plucking creates the debris at the base or sides of the glacier that causes abrasion.
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.
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. [4]
Weathering and erosion break the original rock down into smaller fragments and carry away dissolved material. This fragmented material accumulates and is buried by additional material. While an individual grain of sand is still a member of the class of rock it was formed from, a rock made up of such grains fused together is sedimentary.