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WEATHERING

We now move from making rock from molten material to the processes which
wear rock down and turn it into sediments of various kinds: weathering. The next
lecture will deal with turning sediments into rock.

What is weathering?

As you have no doubt noticed, things tend to break down when left outside. Metal
rusts, paint peels, wood cracks, newspapers turn yellow and brittle, and so on.
Basically, things tend to fall apart with age. The same sorts of things happen to
rock.

Weathering is an umbrella term for the processes which wear rock and other
materials down and break them apart. It happens because rocks and minerals
which formed at one set of conditions are not necessarily stable at other
conditions; more correctly, the rocks and minerals are not in equilibrium with the
environment around them. Weathering is the process by which rocks and
minerals become equilibrated with their surroundings.

Types of Weathering

We'll discuss three major kinds of weathering:

 Chemical
Minerals making up a rock are chemically altered. They either transform to
other minerals or dissolve.
 Physical/Mechanical
Rocks are fragmented through generally inorganic mechanisms, while the
chemical composition of the rocks' minerals does not change.
 Biological
Living organisms can accelerate either of the previous two mechanisms.
Chemical Weathering

Rainwater is always slightly acidic (and in some places, very acidic!). Carbon
dioxide dissolves in water and becomes carbonic acid, which is the stuff that
makes sodas acidic (the concentration of carbon dioxide is much lower in regular
water, which is why it doesn't feel or taste acidic). This acid reacts chemically
with minerals and either dissolves them or turns them into other minerals.

Here are three types of chemical weathering which I want you to know about:

 Dissolution/Leaching
Some rocks dissolve completely when exposed to rainwater; two important
ones are rock salt and limestone. When these rocks dissolve, the materials
which make them up become ions in solution in the water, and are carried
away with it.
 Oxidation/Rusting
In general, oxidation is when an atom or ion loses one or more electrons.
A prime example is when iron rusts -- rusting is when iron ions change
from one form to another, and they lose one electron along the way. Iron-
bearing minerals also ``rust'' as the iron contained in their structures
changes form as above.
 Hydration
Some minerals react with water and acid to take up hydrogen and ``kick
out'' other cations; this process is called hydration. Feldspars tend to
hydrate and change to clay; this is discussed well in your book.

Physical Weathering

Rocks are naturally fractured at several levels. Mineral grains have boundaries,
which can be areas of weakness in the rock. Sedimentary rocks (next time) often
are layered and the layers sometimes are not bound together well. More massive
rocks can have joints (cracks which have no relative motion across them, only
spreading) which will open as the rocks are exposed due to erosion. Physical
weathering acts to widen these fractures.
Some examples of physical weathering mechanisms:

 Frost wedging

Frost wedging happens when water filling a crack freezes and expands. The
expanding ice presses against the rock and wedges open the crack.

 Heat/Cold Cycles

As rocks are alternately heated and cooled, they expand and contract;
minerals expand and contract different amounts, and this differential
expansion and contraction may stress rocks and crack them. This is mostly
found in deserts; the actual mechanisms by which it happens are still under
study.

 Unloading
Plutonic igneous rocks form at depth in the crust, and may have zones of
weakness in them. When these rocks are exposed (through erosion of
overlying rock) they expand, and the zones of weakness open up as joints.
Granite tends to open and peel away sheets of rock (think of peeling an
onion); the domes in Yosemite are formed by this process, which is called
exfoliation. Figure 6.13 in your book is a nice shot of exfoliation.
 Abrasion
Wind, waves, rain, glaciers, and so on abrade rocks' surfaces, wearing
them down.

Biological Weathering

Biological weathering is, of course, weathering done by living things. I suppose it

could really be called a special case of either physical or chemical weathering, but
it is kind of neat that life on the planet can weather rocks. Some examples:

 Tree roots

Tree roots grow into cracks and widen them, which helps physical weathering.
  Bacteria
Some bacteria and other organisms secrete acidic solutions, which helps
chemical weathering.
 Chitons/Limpets
These mollusks are common on San Diego beaches. They live in small
hollows which they scrape into rocks, and you can find them in tide-pool
areas (I hope we see some at the Beach Walk later).

No doubt there are others you can think of.

Controls on Weathering Rate

Weathering doesn't proceed at the same rate everywhere. For example, rocks in
arid regions may be only very slightly weathered, while similar rocks in the tropics
are so weak you can kick them apart. Some general statements can be made
about the factors which influence the rate of weathering:

 The more massive the rock, the slower it will weather physically.
 Heavy rainfall and high temperatures promote chemical weathering. Thus
desert rocks show less weathering than rocks in tropical rain forests.
 Soil is both a weathering product and an agent of weathering. Since soil
holds moisture and organisms, rocks will weather more quickly when in
contact with soil than when they are not.
 The longer a rock has been exposed at the surface, the more weathered it
will be, all other things being equal.

Chemical weathering rates are controlled by the environment but also by the
minerals involved.

 The more soluble a mineral is, the more weathered it will be. Calcite and
halite are highly soluble, while quartz is not.
 The more quickly a mineral dissolves (the higher the rate of dissolution),
the more weathered it will be. This is related to how hard it is to break
bonds in the crystal structure of the mineral. Quartz dissolves very slowly,
 since it is a tough framework structure. Olivine, on the other hand,
dissolves more rapidly, since it is made of isolated silica tetrahedra which
are not as tightly bound to one another.
 The earlier a mineral crystallizes from melt, the less stable it is at surface
conditions. Feldspars will weather more quickly that quartz, despite the
fact that they are both framework silicates. This is because feldspars freeze
at higher temps than quartz and are thus more unstable at surface
conditions.

In particular, know the weathering order for: halite, olivine, pyroxene,

potassium feldspar, clay minerals, quartz, and hematite. This list is in
order of increasing resistance to weathering (i.e., hematite weathers most slowly,
while halite weathers most quickly).

Different Weathering Modes Help Each Other

Keep in mind that you really can't separate physical from chemical or biological
weathering, because all three proceed at the same time (though not at the same
rates, necessarily). In fact, the three are bound up with each other, dancing a
little three-handed jig.

 Physical weathering helps chemical weathering by breaking rocks up into

smaller chunks, thus exposing more surface area. With more surface area
exposed, chemical reactions happen faster. Think of dissolving sugar in
water. Sugar lumps will dissolve more slowly than the same amount of
sugar which is granulated --- because the surface area is higher for the
granulated sugar. Try it if you don't believe me.

Also, if slopes are flattened by physical weathering, water and soil can
build up and thus speed chemical weathering.

 Chemical weathering helps physical weathering by weakening the mineral

grains which make up rocks. This makes the rocks easier to break up by
mechanical means.
  Biological weathering helps both, as I described above. Trees fracture rock
with their roots, which makes them easier to break up physically and
exposes more surface area for chemical weathering. Bacteria which secrete
acid solutions speed chemical weathering.

And so on and so on and...

Summary

From lecture, your notes, these notes, and your reading I want you to know the
following:

 What is weathering?
 Why does it happen?
 Major types of weathering
o How they work
o Examples of each
 Controls on weathering rates
 How the types of weathering help each other out

Greg Anderson
ganderso@gps.caltech.edu
Last modified on Fri Feb 4 11:06:10