Because of weathering, natural wonders of the world are made. These natural wonders are also proofs that weathering really occurs. Grand Canyon for example is only one of the most spectacular and natural rock formation made by weathering. Just stroll down your garden and observe some natural rock formation.
There are two types of weathering and these are chemical weathering and mechanical weathering and these two occur even without human intervention. To know more about weathering, you need to understand more of its two types.
So here are the distinctions between chemical and mechanical weathering. Chemical weathering, to begin with, includes chemicals for rocks to transform.
Chemical weathering categories of rocks include dissolution, oxidation, carbonation, and hydrolysis. The transformation occurs only when water is mixed with the chemicals that acid rain delivers or when rocks form in river banks gets washed down with the chemicals from nearby certain chemical factories.
When ice thaws, liquid water completes the process of weathering by moving away the little tiny stone scraps lost in the fissure. This particular process the freeze-thaw cycle is known as cold weathering. Temperature changes can also add to mechanical weathering in a manner known as thermal stress: variations in heat cause rock to expand with heat and contract with cold. The formation of the rock crumbles after a certain amount of time. After a specific amount of time passes, the rocks start to crumble into smaller pieces.
Chemical Weathering is the principle through which the breakdown of rocks happens because of chemical reactions transpiring around the minerals present in stones and the atmosphere. The main agents of chemical weathering are water.
A lot of synthetic compounds are found in water. Water has many weak acids, such as carbonic acid , which leak into the rocks to start the breaking down process. This vulnerable acid is enough to be formed when carbon dioxide gas from the environment mixes with rainwater. Burrowing animals can also break apart rock as they dig for food or to make living spaces for themselves.
Figure 4. Mechanical weathering increases the rate of chemical weathering. As rock breaks into smaller pieces, the surface area of the pieces increases figure 5. With more surfaces exposed, there are more surfaces on which chemical weathering can occur.
Figure 5. Mechanical weathering may increase the rate of chemical weathering. Chemical weathering is the other important type of weathering. Chemical weathering is different from mechanical weathering because the rock changes, not just in size of pieces, but in composition.
That is, one type of mineral changes into a different mineral. Chemical weathering works through chemical reactions that cause changes in the minerals. Most minerals form at high pressure or high temperatures deep in the crust, or sometimes in the mantle.
This is a very different environment from the one in which they formed and the minerals are no longer stable. Many silicate minerals form in igneous or metamorphic rocks. The minerals that form at the highest temperatures and pressures are the least stable at the surface. Clay is stable at the surface and chemical weathering converts many minerals to clay figure 6. There are many types of chemical weathering because there are many agents of chemical weathering.
Water is the most important agent of chemical weathering. Two other important agents of chemical weathering are carbon dioxide and oxygen. A water molecule has a very simple chemical formula, H 2 O, two hydrogen atoms bonded to one oxygen atom.
But water is pretty remarkable in terms of all the things it can do. The positive side of the molecule attracts negative ions and the negative side attracts positive ions. So water molecules separate the ions from their compounds and surround them.
Water can completely dissolve some minerals, such as salt. Follow this link to check out this animation of how water dissolves salt. Hydrolysis is the name of the chemical reaction between a chemical compound and water.
When this reaction takes place, water dissolves ions from the mineral and carries them away. These elements have undergone leaching. Through hydrolysis, a mineral such as potassium feldspar is leached of potassium and changed into a clay mineral. Carbon dioxide CO 2 combines with water as raindrops fall through the atmosphere.
This makes a weak acid, called carbonic acid. This acid is especially effective at degrading limestone. Underground carbonation may form limestone caverns. Acid rain is caused by sulfur and nitrogen compounds in the air reacting with water to form acids that then fall to the ground.
These acids are particularly harmful to marble, chalk, and limestone, and cause damage to tombstones, statues, and other public monuments. Jon Zamboni began writing professionally in He has previously written for The Spiritual Herald, an urban health care and religious issues newspaper based in New York City, and online music magazine eBurban. Zamboni has a Bachelor of Arts in religious studies from Wesleyan University. The Effects of Physical Weathering.
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