Exam 2 Study Guide – 10/29/19

 Chp 5 – Weathering

o Physical/Chemical (138)

o Mechanical

 Things that physically break the rock

o Chemical

 Involves chemical reactions between chemicals in environment and

minerals in the rock.

o Environment

 Surface

 Out of equilibrium

o Physical weathering processes (139)

 Wedging

 Rock that has a crack in it, wedge something in the crack till it

splits

 Frost/ice wedging: Water goes in crack and freezes the ice expands

and splits rock apart.

 Root wedging: roots go into the crack, as it grows it expands

 Salt wedging: in the desert. Water gets into cracks, water

evaporates leaving behind salt deposits

 Abrasion – whenever sediment is transported

 Sediment flowing along river, makes contact with the floor,

rounding them and making them smaller.

  Pressure Release (Unloading) – Take the pressure from the rock/take of

the weight (Complex)

 Rocks form underground then erode and weight is lifted, rock then

relaxes causing cracks in the rock.

 Exfoliation

o Cracks side to side and flakes break off

 Sheet Joints – Joint means cracks

 Exfoliation – horizontal cracks

 Heat (expansion) – wild fire

 When rocks are subjected to heat, they expand

 When cools they shrink

 When only surface heats up it expands and contracts, but rest of

rock isn’t, rock starts to break

o Happens during fire

o Happens in the desert with temp difference from day to

night (hyp)

 Breaking the rocks into smaller pieces increases surface area exposed to

environment.

o Chemical Weathering (143)

 Water

 Dissolution and weather

 Hydration/Dehydration (evaporation)

 Swelling and shrinking

  Carbonation – learn the physical steps happening

 Minerals dissolving in water with a little help

 Water soaks into soil, combines with carbon dioxide, creating a

weak carbonic acid.

 Carbonic acid interacts with the minerals (can dissolve

calcite/limestone)

o Carried off in a liquid form (liquid sediment)

 Oxygen

 Abundant + chemically active

 Combines easily with other elements, named Oxidation

 Oxygen + element in existing mineral = Oxidation

 Acids

 Hydrolysis

o Splitting apart water molecules

 Free hydrogen ions (H+) in environment

o The more hydrogen ions, the more acidic the environment

o Substitute other ions in the original mineral

o This Disrupts the original crystal structure

o Bowen

 Diff minerals weather at different rates

 Minerals at top weather faster, more seseptable less stable (Dark) –

Olivine/augite

 Minerals at bottom weather slower, lighter, last to decompose is quartz

o Weathering Products

 Break offs

 Chemical solutions

o Environment factors (149)

 Climate (faster in warm humid tropical)

 Climate (most important), topography, depth, rock type

 Climate

o Chemical moves top down

 Topography

o More rugged, the more rock surface to subject to

weathering

o Colder temps as you get higher up for more frost wedging

(mechanical)

 Rock type

o Whatever minerals the rock is made of

o Soils (149) - online

 Formation –

 At the ground surface

 In loose rock material at earth surface

 Weathering has to happen to make soil formation possible

 Weathering makes the Parent material

 From the interaction between the solid earth and the atmosphere
  These take raw parent material and turn it into soil

o Water plays important role in soil formation

o So does vegetation and animals/organisms

o And Chemical weathering

 Properties – layers to the soil (most obvious)

 Top to bottom / layers of soil

o Darker color, vegitation

o Lighter color

o Unaltered raw parent material

 Types – Humid, Dry, Tropical

o Pedalfers

 Rich in aluminum and iron

 Humid env. Main diff

 More east America

o Pedocals

 Rich and calcium

 Dry env. Main diff

 More west America

o Laterites

 Soils of the tropics

 Bright red color

 Result of extreme chemical weathering

  All original minerals of rocks are totally decomposed

 Tend to be very infertal – not good for agriculture

 Chp 6 – Sedimentary Rocks

o Sed rock types (166) – difference is how theyre transported

 Detrital – fragments / texture (size)

 All Detrital are clastic but not all clastic is detrital

 Physical elements – sand grains, pebbles

 Distinction – gravel, sand, mud

 Chemical – liquid form

 Travels as liquid (invisible when transported)

 Transformation back to solid form is the important part

o Primary way is Biochemical

o Evaporation – water evaporates

o Precipitation – Chemically a liquid turns solid again (most

complicated)

 Other chemical sedimentary

o Limestone is the most common type of sedimentary rock)

o Prectipitates – calcedony /

 Chert

 Geodes (hollow inside) (calcite minerals)

 Organic

 Living matter (plants)

o
o Sed Properties (169)

 Texture – Size

 Gravel

o Boulder, cobbles, pebbles

 Sand – each category cuts the one before it in half

o Dividing line between sand & gravel is 2mm

 Mud

o Silt – dust size

o Clay – microscopic

 Transport velocity

o Gotten from particle size

 Shape

 Fossils

 Structures (180)

 Ripples – moving piles of sediment

 Crossbedding

o Sed. Environments (185)

 Continental

 Transitional

 Marine

o Energy Resuorces

 Fossil fuels
 Chp 7 – Metamorphic Rocks

o Causes/Factors (198) -

 Heat - Transforms

 Pressure – Transforms

o Types (204)

 Contact

 When they touch something hot like hot magma (come in contact)

 Regional – Big area, large

 Convergent boundaries – source of pressure

 Mountain building

o Metamorphic environments

 What were the conditions like when the rock undergoes metamorphisis

 Judge that by looking at specific minerals – Index Materials

o Index Materials (214)

 vcShow pressure/heat conditions.

o Low grade vs High Grade (High grade are higher temps are high grade)

 Critical Concepts

o Weathering

 Mechanical types

 Chemical agents

 Products

 Role of environment (climate) & Rock type (Bowen)

o Soil Formations – LEARN PROCESS

  Parents Material – to Soil

 Parent material is just loose material that is a product of

weathering

 Ex. Sand on beach

o Not soil. But can be transformed into soil slowly over time

 Soil profiles (layers)

o Sedimentary and Sed Rocks

 Detrital textures

 Chemical Sediment transformations

 Evaporation

 Chemical precipitation

 Biologically (living organisms)

o Sed interpretation – where came from, how was transported, where deposited,

what environment, and how old

 Significance of texture

 Formation of structures

 Ripples, dunes, crossbedding, mudcracks.

 HOW the structure forms and what that says

 Glacial – glacial till deposited by melting ice

 Melt wash

 Sorting of sed

 Outwash

 Meandering streams – finer sediment

  Transitional

 Deltas – stream?

 Beaches – wave action

 Barrier Islands – coastlines, new beach, dune/mud seds

 Marine

 Continental shelf – MOST IMPORTANT

o shallow water off-shore

o layers of sed build up

o In tropics you get coral reefs

 Limestone environments

o Plate tectonics

 Creation of new ocean bases

 Continental sediment blanket the subsiding margins to form

continental shelves and rises. The ocean widens and mid ocean

ridges develops (atlantics ocean)

 Active plate colliding so not much continental shelf

 Leading edge and back edge

o Metamorphism

 Change form

 Transformation

o Types

 Contact - heat

 Zone of alteration around the intrusive rock

  Intruded into existing rocks

 Heat of magma changes the country rocks

 Mostly non-foliated metamorphic rocks (marble, quartzite, no

consistent direction)

 Regional – convergent boundaries - pressure

 Result of high pressure, mountain building, plate collision

 Pressure

o Burial & Mountain Building

 Foliation

o Flattened crystals

o Aligned (gneiss, schist, blah bleh)

 Intensity of metamorphic

 Low grade – slight alterations, compacted (slate)

 High grade – Very extensive alteration, can maybe make original

rock unrecognizable, Recrystallized into new minerals (crystal

structures and chemical combos)

 Progressive metamorphism

o Mud stone – compacted into slate – heat and pressure to

phyllite – even more, schist – more, Gneiss

 Metamorphic Facies

o Environment (How hot, how much pressure)

o Chemical and pressure

  Index materials

o How hot,

 Mountain Building

o Plate tectonics and Metamorphism

 Happens at convergent boundaries (possibility of high pressure and temp)

 Nearly all metamorphic rocks form at convergent boundaries

o Migmatites - online

 Metamorphic rocks, swirly banded appearance – product of very intense

metamorphism, the rock that has experiences the most intense heat and

pressure

o Chemical activity - metamorphism

 Chemically active fluid can change a rock (at the same time)

 Mostly happens with Hydrothermal solutions (hot mineral rich

water)

 Come out of magma chambers

o Metasomatism

 Chemical metamorphosis