WEATHERING

Destructive Forces
in Nature..
Those that destroy landforms.

By Moira Whitehouse PhD

 How are Landforms Made?

• The forces that create the different

landforms are, broadly speaking:

• Constructive forces

• Destructive forces
 Constructive forces
• Are those that build up the land.

• Landforms such as mountains ranges,

volcanoesand plateaus are built by the
movement of the Earth’s plates

• Landforms such as deltas, plains and sand

dunes are created when rocks and soil
resulting from weathering and erosion are
carried away and deposited in new areas.
 Destructive forces

• Those that wear down the land, like weathering

and erosion.

(Don’t let the name “destructive forces” mislead you.

Destructive forces create landforms like canyons,
valleys, etc. but to do so they first had to destroy
some other landforms, mountains, plateaus, etc.)
The two players in the destructive process are:

Weathering
and

Erosion
All rocks do not weather at the same rate.

Further we will find that parts of some

rocks weather faster than other parts of
the same rock. Why?
Whatever the reason, one can find some
very odd looking weathered rock:
 Why?

Grand canyon

Image courtesy of National Geographic

Yes, the rock on the bottom is softer than the
rock on top of this formation. The top rock
weathers more slowly.
 Why?

Is it because the
rock on top is
harder than the
rock below?

http://www.flickr.com Wolfgang Staudt

What causes weathering; that is, what
causes rocks to break into smaller and
smaller pieces?
• Nonliving things and living things can
break bigger rocks into smaller pieces.

We will look first at non living things that

break up rock.
Nonliving things that break rocks into pieces.
1. Water running over the rock
2. Water freezing in cracks in the rocks
3. The temperature of rocks changing
from hot to cold
4. The abrasion of rock by the blowing
wind carrying sand
5. Water with acid in it
Running water
Rapidly moving water particularly high up in
the mountains or a canyon can break off pieces
of rock.
http://www.ngu.no/en-gb/hm/
Seen here, a small,
fast running
stream of water is
dramatically
cutting through
the rock in the side
of this mountain.
Rocks carried by fast moving water hit other rocks
breaking them into pieces. Moving sand acts like
sandpaper on the larger rocks in the river bed
rubbing off pieces of rock.
These
smallerpieces
are then
carried
downstream
by thefast
movingriver.
http://www.flickr.com kia4067
Here you can see pieces of rock created by
fast moving water.

http://www.flickr.com Randy OHC

 Rocks that have
been tumbled for
a long time in
rivers and streams
become smooth
and rounded.

http://www.flickr.com
Dawn
Freezing water
Here we can see
cracks in large
mountain rocks.

Copyright 2004 by Andrew Alden,

geology.about.com, reproduced under
educational fair use http://www.ct.gov/
Rain fills these cracks with water.
When the water freezes, it expands within
the crack pushing the rock apart.

Image courtesy of the geology department umd

As the ice melts, the water flows
deeper into the crack.
Then the water freezes again, further
cracking the rock.
This repeated of
freezing and
thawing forces the
crack open more
and more,
eventually
shattering the large
rock into smaller
pieces.
Changing temperature
3. Changing temperature also causes
weathering.
As rocks heat up, they expand. As they cool,
they contract.
This process is repeated over and over again
in nature.
Eventually this process causes them to
break apart.
 Here we see
large rock in a
desert
environment
that has
probably
been exposed
to the freeze-
melt cycle.

http://www.flickr.com
Hoggheff aka Hank Ashby aka Mr. Freshtags'
Abrasion
4. Abrasion by windblown sand also
weathers rocks particularly in deserts. It
is similar to rubbing sandpaper over a
piece of wood or sandblasting concrete.

http://www.flickr.com beige alert

Frequent sandstorms in the desert
weather exposed rocks.

http://www.flickr.com nukeit1
The scouring of the rock by the wind
carrying sand wears off fragments of rock.

http://www.flickr.comlumierefl
Water with acid in it
Carbonic acid is very common in nature. It is
produced when carbon dioxide combines
with water.

When this weak carbonic acid trickles

into cracks in limestone, it dissolves the
rock and eats “holes” in it.
The mildly acidic rain
water flows into
cracks in the ground.

Sometimes it eats
huge holes in the
rock--caves.

http://www.esi.utexas.edu
The same acid that made this rock “holy”
when it was buried in the ground, also
works to make caves
 stalactites

stalagmites

This is a picture of a cave with stalactites

and stalagmites.
When the acid water dissolved the rock
evaporates, crystals of calcite are left behind.

When the water from many, many drips at the

top of a cave evaporates, a stalactite forms. (the
one on the ceiling stuck tight ...stalactite)

Drips that fall on the cave floor cause stalagmites

to grow. (The stalagmitesmight have stuck to the
ceiling but they didn’t.)
More pictures of
stalactites and
stalagmites, do
you remember
which is which?
Sometime other minerals in rocks react with
the weak acid in water to form other weaker
substances.
These weaker substances are then more easily
worn away by weathering.

Feldspar changes
to clay.
Living things
that cause
weathering
These are some of the living things
that break rocks into smaller pieces:

1. Plant roots—particularly tree roots

2. Lichen growing on rocks

3. Burrowing animals
Plant roots
The roots of plants, particularly tree roots,
are amazingly strong. When they start
growing as tiny root hairs they can fit into
the smallest of cracks.

As these tree roots continue to grow,

cause the cracks to get bigger and bigger
breaking the rock apart.
Here the
roots of the
tree are
growing in
the cracks in
the rocks
making the
cracks larger.

http://www.flickr.com
Chazz Layne
http://media.photobucket.com/ city bumpkins
Lichen growth
 Lichens appear in the form
of small patchy crusty
colors of green, brown,
and orange patches. They
often grow on rocks and
break them apart.

http://www.flickr.combrian http://www.flickr.comSeaDavid
Burrowing animals
3. Burrowing animals
When animals burrow in rocks or between
the rocks, they carry seeds which germinate
in the cracks in the rocks.
How about a little review.

Do you remember what the word

weathering of rock means?

Yes, it means breaking rock into smaller and smaller pieces.

But, with weathering, it is not a hammer or man who

breaks the rock. It is forces in nature.
What are the main forces in nature that break rock into
smaller and smaller pieces?

Yes, there is:

• fast running water
• wind carrying sand
• water in the cracks freezing, melting and freezing
• rocks heating up in daytime and cooling down at night
• acid in water “eating” holes in rock and forming caves
• plant roots
• burrowing animals
What force in nature is
causing the rock to
weather in the pictures
on the left forming a
deeper and deeper
valley?
In the desert, there
is very little running
water. What force
in nature causes
rock formations like
the one seen in the
pictures on the
left?
What force in
nature has caused
the rock in the
picture on the left
to break into two
pieces?
What will happen
to this rock if water
gets into the cracks
and freezes, melts,
freezes and melts
over and over
again?
After millions and
millions of years
the mountains on
the left will finally
look like the ones
shown below.

Weathering is
constantly changing
the surface of the
Earth.