Reading Activity

SC.7.E.6.2: Identify the patterns within the rock cycle and relate them to surface events (weathering and
erosion) and sub-surface events (plate tectonics and mountain building).

Rock Cycle Patterns

The Earth formed about 4.6 billion years ago, along with the other solar planets and the Sun
itself. The planets built up by accretion of rocky and gaseous debris (steroidal, planetesimal
[meteoritic] materials and comets) through collision of orbiting bodies. Aided by gravitational
attraction which helped to compact these material, early on the assembling Earth underwent
partial to complete melting, separation of different materials into an inner and outer core (IronNickel), an extensive interior mantle, (Iron/Magnesium/Calcium-rich silicates), and a thin crust
(enriched in Silica, Sodium/Potassium/Aluminum), all (except the outer core) solidifying by
cooling over the first few hundred million years; escaping gases produced an atmosphere
(principally H, CO2, N, CH4) were held above the solid Earth by gravity owing to its large
mass; in time (about 4 billion years ago), the Earths exterior cooled sufficiently to allow vast
volumes of water vapor to condense, forming in lower areas great concentrations of water
collected into depressions (oceanic basins).
The Earths materials are diverse and variable. Most variation occurs in the outermost 200
kilometers, in the lithosphere. Igneous rocks form directly by crystallization of hot melts made
up of silicates (SimOn) combined with Fe, Mg, Ca, Al, Na, K, Ti, and H2O). Minerals formed
from these make up nearly all the mantle and crust. Rocks at the surface
decompose/disintegrate by reaction with the atmosphere/hydrosphere to produce solid debris
and soluble chemicals that are transported/deposited to form sediments, that upon burial are
converted to Sedimentary rocks (usually layered; strata). Previously formed rocks that are
heated and pressurized when buried to shallow to moderate depths (5 to 70 km) of the crust
recrystallize as solids under increased temperatures and pressures to form Metamorphic rocks
(some may melt). The above processes comprise the Rock Cycle, shown below, and discussed
in more detail on this page.

The Earths outer shells (crust and upper mantle = lithosphere), about150-200 kilometers thick
under the continents (less so under the oceans), are subjected to dynamic forces that cause
segments of the shells and materials at the top, to break up into plates and deposits on them
that move laterally, bringing about deformation of their constituent rocks (mainly in and on the
crust) by bending, folding, flowing, fracturing, movement of blocks along faults, and melting.
The dynamic processes, driven mainly by heat (much supplied by radioactive element decay)
and gravity and resultant convection within and below the lithosphere (in the mantle), move
plate units either away from each other or against each other (both situations can affect a
plate); this general motion is called plate tectonics. Plates diverge from ridges rising from
within oceanic basins (lower areas underlain by basaltic crust) and converge against boundaries
of other plates (whose outer rocks are either oceanic or continental in nature and composition),
causing melting, volcanism, metamorphism, mountain building, rise/fall of crustal blocks,
continental growth and splitting.