Types of Weathering
This type of weathering breaks rocks without changing their chemical composition.
What is mechanical weathering?
Tree roots growing into cracks and breaking rocks apart is this type of activity.
What is biological activity?
This process involves a chemical reaction with water that changes minerals.
What is hydrolysis?
These are the three main agents of erosion.
What are water, wind, and glacial ice?
Most soil is made of this material.
What is mineral matter?
Human overgrazing can lead to this serious environmental problem.
What is desertification?
This type of weathering changes original minerals into new minerals, such as feldspar to clay.
What is chemical weathering?
This process occurs when pressure is reduced as overlying rock is removed.
What is unloading?
This process happens when water dissolves minerals like calcite.
What is dissolution?
These are small channels cut into soil by running water.
What are rills?
Decayed organic matter in soil is called this.
What is humus?
Farming without plowing between harvests is called this.
What is no-till agriculture?
This process breaks rocks when freezing water expands in cracks.
What is frost wedging?
Mechanical weathering increases this, which speeds up chemical weathering.
What is surface area?
This chemical weathering process involves oxygen reacting with minerals.
What is oxidation?
These are deep channels formed by water erosion.
What are gullies?
These are horizontal layers in soil.
What are soil horizons?
This farming method plants crops in curved rows to reduce erosion.
What is contour plowing?
This type of weathering forms when atoms lose electrons and new minerals are created.
What is oxidation?
Frost wedging is caused by this substance expanding when it freezes.
What is water?
This silicate mineral weathers the fastest.
What is olivine?
Even a single large raindrop can cause this process.
What is water erosion?
This type of soil is darkest and most fertile.
What is temperate grassland soil?
Rows of trees planted to block wind are called these.
What are windbreaks?
This chemical weathering process breaks minerals apart into ions without changing the mineral.
What is dissolution?
This type of weathering always happens on exposed rock surfaces.
What is chemical weathering?
This silicate mineral is the most resistant to weathering.
What is quartz?
This process causes landscapes to have ridges and valleys due to different rock types weathering at different rates.
What is differential weathering?
This type of soil is lightest and least fertile.
What is desert soil?
This practice involves planting different crops in different seasons.
What is crop rotation?