NAVIGATION: earlier TO MODULE 2 INTRODUCTION
Physical Weathering (some material on this page obtained from USGS)
PhysicalWeatheringThe 2 main species of weathering space physical andchemical weathering. This page describes mechanical(physical) weathering (and more).
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Rocks space naturally fractured at several levels.Mineral grains have actually boundaries, which have the right to be areas of weak in the rock.Sedimentary rocks (next time) often are layered and also the layers occasionally are notbound with each other well. Much more massive rocks deserve to have joints (cracks which have norelative motion throughout them, only spreading) i m sorry will open as the rocks areexposed as result of erosion. Physics weathering acts come widen this rockfractures.Some examples of physical weathering mechanisms: Frost wedging Frost wedging happens when water filling a crack freezes and also expands (as it freezes, water increases 8 come 11% in volume over fluid water). The broadening ice imparts a great amount the pressure against the absent (as much as 30,000 pounds/square inch) and also wedges open the crack. We see this type of weathering indigenous a distance in the san Francisco Peaks (near Flagstaff) and up near in the La Sal mountains in southeast Utah (near Moab). Heat/Cold Cycles together rocks room alternately heated and cooled (that is, together they go through cycles the hot/cold), they expand and also contract; minerals expand and also contract different amounts, and also this differential expansion and also contraction might stress rocks and also crack them. This is mostly uncovered in deserts; the actual mechanisms by which it happens room still under research (Brandon Vogt walk his thesis on insolation weathering that sandstone)! forest fires (and even lightening!) have the right to crack rocks too! these hot/cold cycles can happen in a issue of moment (say, together the sunlight suddenly overcome behind a cloud) or in a matter of hrs (diurnal temperature change) or in the issue of days (air fixed behind the i of a warm/cold front). Unloading Plutonic igneous rocks kind at depth in the crust v an enormous volume of absent (overburden) above them. As soon as these rocks are exposed, and also the immense weight that the overburden rock above them is removed, lock expand, and also zones that weakness open up together joints. Granite often tends to open and peel away sheets of rock (think of peeling an onion); the domes in Yosemite are developed by this process, i beg your pardon is referred to as unloading. There are instances of this kind of weathering in the Landslide module as well as the throughout the Weathering module.
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