DESCRIBING HOW ROCKS BEHAVE UNDER DIFFERENT TYPES OF STRESS

LEARNING COMPETENCY
Describe how rocks behave under different types of stress such as compression, pulling apart and shearing. (S11Es-IId-27)
Key Terms:
The factors that affect the deformation of rock include temperature , pressure, rock type, and time.
Deformation is any change in the original shape and/or size of a rock body.
Stress is the force per unit area acting on a solid. When rocks are under stresses greater than their own strength, they begin to
deform.
The change in shape or volume of a body of rock as a result of stress is called a strain.
What is a rock?
It is naturally occurring mixtures of minerals, mineraloids, glass or organic matter.
Rocks are continually changed by many processes such as weathering, erosion, compaction, cementation, melting and cooling.
Stress is the force applied to an object. In geology, stress is the force per unit area that is placed on a rock. When rocks deform they
are said to strain. A strain is a change in size, shape, or volume of a material.
Types of Stress
Tensional Stress which acts in opposite directions, pulling rock apart or stretching it. Tension can happen in two ways. Two separate
plates can move farther away from each other, or the ends of one plate can move in different directions. Some scientists think tension
stress caused the ancient, massive continent Pangaea to break off into the seven continents we have today.
Compressional Stress acts toward each other, pushing or squeezing rock together. Compression causes rocks to fold or break.
Compression is the most common stress at convergent plate boundaries.
Shear Stress causes two planes of material to slide past each other. This is the most
common stress found at transform plate boundaries. Shear stresses may act toward or
away
from each other, but they do so along different lines of action, causing rock to twist or tear.

Figure 1: Types of Stress

Elastic deformation
The strain or the deformation is temporary. It is reversed when the source of stress is removed.
Ductile Deformation
The strain is permanent. There is irreversible change in shape or size that is not recovered when stress is removed.
Fracture
It is also known as brittle deformation. The strain is irreversible that results to the breakage of rock due to the loss of
consistency of a body under the influence of stress.
FACTORS AFFECTING THE DEFORMATION OF ROCKS
a. Temperature - At high temperature molecules and their bonds can stretch and move, thus materials will behave in more ductile
manner. At low Temperature, rocks tend to deform brittlely. Heat makes materials softer.
b. Pressure - At high confining pressure materials are less likely to fracture because the pressure of the surroundings tends to
hinder the formation of fractures. At low confining stress, material will be brittle and tend to fracture sooner
c. Strain Rate or deformation rate – A sudden change in shape causes brittle deformation, whereas a slow change in shape causes
ductile deformation. For example, if you hit a marble bench with a hammer, it shatters, but if you leave the bench alone for a
century, it gradually sags without breaking.
d. Rock Type or Composition: Some rock types are softer than others; for example, halite (rock salt) deforms ductilely under
conditions in which granite deforms brittlely. Some minerals are very brittle. This is due to the chemical bond types that hold
them together. Thus, the mineralogical composition of the rock will be a factor in determining the deformational behavior of the
rock.
FYI !
What a rock does in response to stress depends on many factors and how long it was exposed to the stress. It seems
difficult to imagine that rocks would not just simply break when exposed to stress. At the Earth's surface, rocks usually
break quite quickly once stress is applied. But deeper in the crust, where temperatures and pressures are higher, rocks are
more likely to deform plastically. Sudden stress, like a hit with a hammer, is more likely to make a rock break. Stress applied
over time often leads to plastic deformation.
TRIVIA
✓ When rocks are squeezed or shortened, the stress is compressional.
✓ When rocks are pulled in opposite directions, the stress is tensional.
✓ When a body of rock is distorted, the stress is shear.
SEAFLOOR SPREADING
LEARNING COMPETENCY: Explain how seafloor spreads. (S11ES-IIf-32)

1
 Hammond Hess, born in 1906, was a professor at Princeton University. Because of his stunt as a Navy officer during the World
War II he was able to use sonar which mapped the ocean floor across the North Pacific which led him to publish “The History of
Ocean Basins” in 1962. It paved way to Sea Floor Spreading. He discovered that the oceans were shallower in the middle, and
identified the presence of Mid Ocean Ridges.

Fig. 1: Henry Hess Source:

The seafloor spreading theory states that “the new ocean

crust is being formed at mid-ocean ridges and destroyed
at deep-sea trenches.”

Fig. 2: Sea Floor Spreading

The Earth has three different layers namely: the crust, mantle
and core. The crust is the part of the Earth right on top where people inhabit. The crust is subdivided into two types, oceanic and continental.
Oceanic crust is found under oceans, and it is about four miles thick in most places. A feature unique to oceanic crust is that there are areas known
as mid-ocean ridges where oceanic crust is still being created. Magma shoots up through gaps in the ocean’s floor here. As it cools, it hardens into
new rock, which forms brand new segments of oceanic crust. Since oceanic crust is heavier than continental crust, it is constantly sinking and
moving under continental crust.
Continental crust varies between six and 47 miles in thickness depending on where it is found. Continental crust tends to be much older than the
oceanic kind, and rocks found on this kind of crust are often the oldest in the world.
Sea-floor Spreading
Seafloor spreading is a geologic process of the movement of two oceanic plates, splitting apart from
each other at a divergent plate boundary. It results in the formation of new oceanic crust from magma
that comes from within the Earth’s mantle along a mid- ocean ridge. This process is the result of mantle
convection. Mantle convection is the slow, swirling motion of Earth’s mantle
Fig. 2: Convection Current
Convection currents carry heat from the lower mantle and core to the lithosphere. Convection currents
also reutilize lithospheric materials back to the mantle (take a look at figure 2).
Seafloor spreading happens at the divergent plate boundaries. As tectonic plates gradually
distance from each other, heat from the mantle’s convection currents makes the crust more plastic and
less dense. The less-dense material rises, often forming a mountain or elevated area of the seafloor.
As a result, the crust cracks. Hot magma powered by mantle convection bubbles up to fill these fractures and spills onto the crust.
This bubbled-up magma is cooled by frigid seawater to form
igneous rock. This rock (basalt) becomes a new part of Earth’s crust.
Seafloor Spreading Subduction
It is the process by which the ocean floor sinks beneath a deep-ocean trench and back into the mantle, and allows part of the
ocean floor to sink back into the mantle.

Evidence for Seafloor Spreading

• The seafloor has a large mountain range running
through it. Deep trenches are found far from the
ridges.
• The magnetic polarity of the seafloor changes. The
center of the ridge is of normal polarity. Stripes of
normal and reverse polarity are found symmetrical on
both sides of the ridge.
• The rocks closest to the ocean ridge were younger than the rocks found further from the ridge. This means that new rocks are formed at
the ridges and push the older rocks away from the ridge based on the core sample collected from 1968, a drilling ship called the Glomar
Challenger.
• The oldest seafloor is much younger than the oldest continent. The oldest ocean floor rocks ever found are 180 million years old.
Remember the Earth is 4.6 billion years old. This proves that ocean floor is being destroyed therefore all ocean floor rocks are young
compared to the age of Earth.
• Rocks shaped like pillows (rock pillows) show that molten material has erupted again and again from cracks along the mid- ocean ridge
and cooled quickly.
• Stripes in the seafloor. When magma cools, the iron cools into the mineral magnetite. It lines up parallel to the Earth’s present magnetic
field. This iron is like compass needles, pointing north. So, when the rock hardens, a record of the Earth’s magnetic field at that time is
locked in stone .

2
Earth Facts : The age of rock increases as distance from ridges increases, youngest is at the ridge.

3
4