Minerals
A naturally occurring, inorganic solid with a specific chemical composition and a definite crystalline structure.
What is a mineral?
One is molten rock below the earth's surface, the other is molten rock above the earth's surface.
What is the difference between magma and lava?
pieces of solid material that have been deposited on Earth’s surface by wind, water, ice, gravity, or chemical precipitation
What are sediments?
Metamorphic change on a large scale.
What is regional metamorphism?
the chemical or mechanical process that breaks down and changes rocks on or near Earth’s surface and whose rate is influenced by factors such as precipitation and temperature
What is weathering?
The manner in which a mineral breaks along planes where atomic bonding is weak.
What is cleavage?
forms when magma cools and crystallizes beneath Earth’s surface.
What is an intrusive igneous rock?
Broken pieces of rock, called sediment, are removed and transported.
What is erosion?
A cycle that depicts the constant cycling of rock from the three rock types into other rocks types and back to magma.
What is the rock cycle?
the process that breaks down rocks and minerals into smaller pieces but does not involve any change in their composition
What is mechanical weathering?
A pure substance that cannot be broken down into simpler substances by chemical or physical means
What is an element?
Silica
What is the most abundant compound in igneous rocks?
in environments with slow-moving water, such as ponds, swamps, and the deep ocean.
Where do fine grained rocks form?
High temperature
What is 1 of 2 factors required for metamorphic rock formation?
Water
What is the most important agent of weathering?
A ranking of the hardness of various minerals
What is the Mohs hardness scale?
The increase in temperature with depth below the Earth's surface.
What is the geothermal gradient?
Pressure and temperature increase below the surface. These increases cause compaction and chemical changes.
What is processes cause cementation?
High pressure.
What is 1 of 2 factors required for metamorphic rock formation?
Speeds up the weathering process
What does temperature do to weathering?
Fine grained mineral crystals.
When magma cools quickly at the earth's surface it forms what type of crystals?
An igneous rock texture that forms when silica rich magma cools below the Earth's surface.
What is a granitic texture?
Bedding.
What feature indicates a sedimentary rock?
Occurs when magma alters rock it comes into contact with.
What is contact metamorphism?
Rates of weathering are slow in this climate.
What weathering would you expect in the desert?