Weathering and Erosion

Weathering and

Erosion 

• Weathering – processes by which environmental agents at or near the earth’s surfacecause rocks and minerals to break down

Small pieces of rock. Mud, sand, or silt are very fine pieces of rock.

Sediment-

Weathering Processes

Chemical weathering – changes the chemical composition

of minerals and rocks

Mechanical weathering –breaks a mineral or rock into smaller pieces (physical changes)

Mechanicalweathering-

Wind weathering

in Monument Valley, Arizona

Chemical Weathering- Rusting can completely eat away iron.

Erosion – process by which gravity, moving water, wind, or ice transports pieces of rock and deposits them elsewhere

Devil’s Tower- volcanic plug

Water Erosion

Deer Creek Falls

Thunder River in the

Grand Canyon

Water erosion in

a field

Wavecut pattern, a geological feature caused by the sea's erosion of cliffs, seen at Southerndown near Bridgend, South Wales.

Loess is a deposit of silt or material which is usually yellowish or brown in color and consisting of clay or dust brought by wind

In the Swiss Alps-The Upper

Grindelwald Glacier and the

Schreckhorn

Glaciation- changing of landforms by slowly moving glaciers

Glacial Erosion

A glaciated valley in the Mount Hood Wilderness showing the characteristic U-shape and flat bottom.

• Moraine is rock debris, fallen or plucked from a mountain and transported by glaciers or ice sheets. The moraine may be lying on the glacier's surface or have been deposited as piles or sheets of debris, where the glacier has melted

Soil Factors• Parent material – chemical composition

of the original rock from which soil develops • Relief-physical features of a landscape • Organisms- plants, worms, ants that decompose material • Climate – amount of precipitation and prevailing temperature • Time – longer period develops thicker more well-developed soil(2.5 cc per 100 years)

Building Soil• Weathering and erosion are a part

of the process of building soil• Soil is a loose mix of:

–Weathered rock–Organic matter–Air –Water

Soil FertilitySoil Fertility depends on the texture of the soil and the amount of: • humus- the amount of organic

material• air and water

Works cited

• scidiv.bcc.ctc.edu/barmin/geo101/6.html • Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia • http://www.edu.pe.ca/southernkings/

loesssp.htm