- Rain is mildly acidic and it slowly eats away rocks. Rain slowly dissolves limestone. It turns the feldspar in granite into soft clay. The remaining quartz crystals are often crushed into grains of sand.
- Plants and microbes also attack rocks. All living things need elements, such as copper, potassium and iron, as nutrients. These minerals are found within rocks. Lichens grow on rocks and release acids to dissolve the minerals in them. Plant roots slowly grow into rocks, forcing them apart.
- In cold areas, water seeps into cracks in the rocks during the day. At night, the water freezes and expands, cracking the rocks even more. This continual freeze and thaw cycle causes rocks to splinter and break into small pieces.
- In the desert, rocks expand during the heat of the day and contract at night when temperatures cool. Sheets of rock slowly flake away.
http://easyscienceforkids.com/all-about-weathering/
- Weathering is the gradual breakdown of rocks when they are exposed to the air.
- Weathering affects surface rocks the most, but water trickling into the ground can weather rocks 200 m down.
- The more extreme the climate, the faster weathering takes place, whether the climate is very cold or very hot
- In tropical Africa the basal weathering front (the lowest limit of weathering underground) is often 60 m down.
- Weathering works chemically (through chemicals in rainwater), mechanically (through temperature changes) and organically (through plants and animals)
- The main form of mechanical weathering is frost shattering when water expands as it freezes in cracks in the rocks and so shatters the rock.
http://www.houseandhome.org/tag/interesting-facts-about-weathering/#sthash.SG78RDh2.dpuf
Key words
Rock Naturally occurring solid mixture of one or more minerals or organic matter
Weathering Decomposition and disintegration of rocks and minerals at the earth's surface by a mechanical and chemical process
Erosion The process by which wind, water, ice, or gravity transports soil and sediment from one location to another
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