Rock Cycle Most Processes on Research Paper

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Both, ironically, are forms of pressure that also cause heat and changes. Water for instance, is so abundant on earth that it drives much of weathering and erosion. Precipitation, acidic soil water and groundwater dissolve mineral and rocks; serpentinization from heated seawater causes destruction of volcanic rock or changes in other seabed rocks; and the presence of water and carbon dioxide change rock as well. This is the manner in which the carbon and water cycle continually interact to change rock.

Plate tectonics, on the other hand, show that there are large scale motions within the earth that move, converge, and drive materials from deep inside the earth towards the surface and vice versa. Zones within the 8 or 9 major plates (subduction zones) form slabs of crust that become embedded and then if pressured enough with heat and more pressure, contribute to the evolution of rock. In addition, one of the closing phases of this (or the Wilson Cycle) is when two plates meet, causing tremendous force that distort and modify the rock (regional metamorphism), and also at times become mountain building events (All about plate tectonics, 2010; The Wilson Cycle, 2000).


Teaching Strategy to Link Plate tectonics to Rock Cycle-

Explain the 4 parts of the earth's crust: a) inner core, very hot and immense pressure; b) outer core, mass of molten iron in which the earth's magnetic field is produced; c) mantle, 1750 miles thick that are composed of liquid magma and slow moving rock; d) crust of 4-25 miles consisting of sand and various types of rock.

Explain that these four parts of the earth are a giant "rock recycling machine." Recycle is the key, because the actual chemical elements that make up the rocks are never really destroyed, but can be redistributed, transforming rock into one type or another.

The recycling machine takes liquid rock and solidifies it, uplifting, causing pressure and changes; weathering, deposition, etc. push rocks downward. Plate tectonics pushes the earth's plates together to form gaps or places for rock to be pushed downward and upward, and then variations in temperature, pressure, or the chemistry of the rock causes physical and chemical changes:.....

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