Types of Physical & Chemical Weathering
Rock breaks into smaller pieces, but the material stays the same.
What is physical (mechanical) weathering?
The process that moves broken rock from one place to another.
What is erosion?
A cone-shaped deposit formed where a river enters a slow-moving or still body of water.
What is a delta?
Which agent makes rocks smooth in rivers?
Water
A student finds small, smooth rocks along a lake shoreline.
What process MOST likely made them smooth?
What is being rolled and weathered by moving water? Abrasion
Water freezes in cracks, expands, and breaks rock apart.
What is ice wedging (mechanical)?
The process where sediments being carried by water, wind, or ice are finally dropped.
What is deposition?
Florida is known for these landforms caused by chemical weathering of limestone underground.
What are sinkholes?
Which agent piles up sand into dunes?
Wind
A rock formation experiences hot days and very cold nights, causing the outer layers to peel like an onion.
What type of weathering is this?
What is temperature/thermal weathering (mechanical)? Ice wedging
Rainwater dissolves limestone underground creating holes and caves.
What is chemical weathering?
Which agent of erosion would most likely move sand along a beach shoreline?
What is moving water / waves?
Wind can create this landform by depositing sand into a mound or ridge.
What is a sand dune?
Which agent carves U-shaped valleys?
Ice (glaciers).
A river flows faster on one side of the bend than the other.
Where will more erosion occur?
On the faster, outside curve of the river.
Tree roots grow into cracks, push rock apart, and break it.
What is root wedging (mechanical weathering)?
On a river bend, which side erodes faster—the inside or outside—and why?
What is the outside because water flows faster there?
Glacial erosion can carve out these bowl-shaped landforms high in mountain ranges.
What are cirques?
Which agent causes landslides?
Gravity
Students compare two beaches after a storm.
-Beach A has mangrove roots, and
-Beach B has no plants.
Which beach will show less erosion, and why?
Beach A,
because plant roots trap sediment and slow erosion.
A metal statue rusts after years of exposure to air and water.
What is chemical weathering because metal reacts with oxygen?
A steep slope produces more erosion than a gentle slope. Explain why.
What is gravity pulls sediment downward faster on steeper slopes?
Compare Florida landforms to non-Florida landforms by naming one found in Florida and one that is NOT.
Florida: coastlines, dunes, aquifers, caverns, lakes, sinkholes
Not Florida: mountains, glaciers, volcanoes
Which agent can move boulders slowly downhill over many years?
Ice (glaciers)
Two rocks are placed in flowing water—one rough and one smooth.
After several weeks, the rough rock becomes smoother.
What process caused this?
Abrasion from moving water.