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.
This page was last edited on 29 October 2015, at 00:18 (UTC).; Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License; additional terms may apply.
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]
Tropical weathering (laterization) is a prolonged process of chemical weathering which produces a wide variety in the thickness, grade, chemistry and ore mineralogy of the resulting soils. [10]: 3 The initial products of weathering are essentially kaolinized rocks called saprolites. [11]
Chemical weathering of granite occurs when dilute carbonic acid, and other acids present in rain and soil waters, alter feldspar in a process called hydrolysis. [ 50 ] [ 51 ] As demonstrated in the following reaction, this causes potassium feldspar to form kaolinite , with potassium ions, bicarbonate, and silica in solution as byproducts.
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 ...
The use of weathering rinds in relative dating is widely used in Arctic, Antarctic, and alpine regions and in the correlation of glacial moraines and tills and fluvial sediments and terraces. [6] [7] [8] In addition, weathering rinds have been used to determine the absolute amount of time gravel-size rock has been exposed to the weathering ...
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.