Weathering
This is the general term for the breaking down of rock over time.
What is Weathering?
This is the process of carrying away sediment.
What is Erosion?
This agent is responsible for mass movement and pulling materials downhill.
What is Gravity?
A mixture of sand, silt, and clay that is considered the most fertile.
What is Loam?
This involves plowing a field along the curves of a slope in order to slow runoff and keep the soil from washing away.
What is Contour Plowing?
This type of weathering involves a change in the composition of the rock, such as acid rain eating away at it.
What is Chemical Weathering?
The grinding away of rock by other rock particles carried by wind, water, or ice.
What is Abrasion?
This landform is created by wind when it deposits sand.
What is a Sand Dune?
This is the bottom layer of the soil profile, made of solid rock that is too deep to be affected by weathering.
What is Bedrock? / What is Horizon D/R?
This practice is used to keep the soil healthy and not depleted of essential nutrients.
What is Crop Rotation?
The process where iron and oxygen react to create a substance commonly known as rust.
What is Oxidation?
This is the process that involves sediment being dropped on riverbanks, deltas, or sandbars.
What is Deposition?
Plants actually prevent this process by holding soil in place with their roots.
What is Erosion?
The top-most layer of soil, also called 'litter', consisting of leaves and other undecomposed plant material.
What is Horizon O?
This method involves disturbing the soil and its plant cover very little, often leaving the stalks of previous crops in the ground.
What is Conservation Plowing?
The breaking down of rock by physical forces, like plant roots growing in a crack or ice expanding.
What is Mechanical (or Physical) Weathering?
This landform is created when deposition occurs at the mouth of a river, where sediment is dropped.
What is a Delta?
This chemical mixes with water to create carbonic acid, which causes chemical weathering and helps make caves.
What is Carbon Dioxide (CO2)?
This dark, top-most soil layer (not the litter) has the most humus and is where most plant roots grow.
What is Horizon A? / What is Topsoil?
These organisms help to mechanically weather rock, mix humus into soil, and add air spaces.
What are Animals?
The process where ice expands inside the crack of a rock, causing it to break apart.
What is Ice Wedging?
This agent does the most shaping of the Earth, making it the major agent of erosion and weathering.
What is Water?
When this agent of erosion melts, it drops the sand and other sediment that it was carrying.
What is Ice? / What is a Glacier?
The layer beneath the topsoil, which has some humus and where water drips down, bringing minerals into it.
What is Horizon B? / What is Subsoil?
This factor, along with the type of rock, affects the rate of weathering.
What is Climate?