Lesson 1:
Chemical Weathering
WEATHERING
Weathering
- Process of breakdown of rocks on
earth
- Caused by action involving water,
ice, acids, salts, plants, animals,
gravity and changing temperatures.
Types of weathering:
1. Physical Weathering
- Happens especially in places
where there is little soil and
few plants: deserts and
mountain regions
- Caused by the effects of
changing temperature, and it
is sometimes assisted by
water.
a. Abrasion
- Occurs when rocks are
exposed frequently to water,
wind, and gravity
b. Freeze Thaw
- Occurs when water
continually seeps into cracks,
freezes and expands,
eventually breaking the rock
apart.
- Usually happens in mountain
regions like the Alps.
c. Exfoliation
- It can happen as cracks when
there is a loss of pressure on
the rock
- Sometimes called “onion
skin” as the result looks like
the rock as been stripped of
its outer layer
2.
- Caused by rainwater reacting
to the mineral grains in rocks
to form new crystals and
soluble salts
- Rapidly occurs at higher
temperatures
- Warm and damp
environment are the best
a. Carbonation
- Carbon dioxide in the air
dissolves in rainwater,
making it weakly acidic
- This “weak” carbonic acid
can dissolve limestone by
seeping into the cavities and
cracks of it
b. Acidification
- Polluting gasses (sulfur
dioxide, nitrogen dioxide)
dissolves in rainwater to
produce acid rain.
- Acid rain are very corrosive,
and attacks many rock types
seriously damaging buildings
and other structure
c. Hydrolysis
- Acidic or basic water
- It takes place when the
solution reacts with
rock-forming minerals such
as feldspar to produce clay
d. Hydration
- Water reacts chemically with
the rocks, modifying its
chemical structure
e. Oxidation
- Breakdown of rocks by
oxygen and water, often
giving it a rusty-colored
weathered surface
3. Biological Weathering
- Rocks are weakened by
biological agents such as
plants and animals.
- When plant roots grow, it
would create fractures and
cracks that eventually result
in rock breakage.
a. By Physical Means
- Burrowing animals such
shrews and moles create
holes in the ground by
excavation, thus moving rock
fragments to the surface
b. By Chemical Compounds
- Some plants and animals
produce acidic substances
that react with rockets and
causes its slow disintegration
Lesson 2:
INTERNAL
HEAT
SOURCE
4 Layers of the Earth
1. Crust
2. Mantle
3. Outer core
4. Inner core
Earth’s internal heat
- Heat inside the earth from
radioactive decay of elements and
residual heat leftover from earth’s
formation
- This heat drives plate tectonics
and parts of the rock cycle
- The burning of fossil fuels
releases airborne particles and
greenhouse gasses into the
atmosphere
- Earth was formed about 4.6
billion years ago and continue to
serve as habitat to diverse
organisms
- Its biotic components remain
alive due to proper regulation of
internal heat. It has massive
amount of heat that varies from
its layer
- The heat increases from the crust
down to the inner core due to
several reasons.
- This internal heat comes from the
following sources:
A. Primordial heat of the planets Lesson 3:
remains from its early stage.
- The earth was formed ENDOGENIC
from the Process of
accretion PROCESSES
- were in gasses and
dust of cloud was
Endogenic Processes
attracted by
- A geological process that was
gravitational energy
formed, originated, and located
- Created earth’s
below the surface of the Earth
molten core, which
“tectonic movements,
traps heat
Metamorphism, Magmatism”

B. Heat from the decay of

How magma is formed?
radioactive elements.
- It forms from partial melting of
- The spontaneous
mantle rocks
breakdown of an atomic
- As temperature rises some
nucleus releases energy
minerals melt and others remain
and matter.
solid
- Isotopes: same number if
- 600-1000 degree Celsius
protons but different
number of neutrons
Decompression Melting
- Usual temperature but pressure
C. Frictional Heating
is reduced
- The more descent into
- Happens when the rock is being
earth’s interior, the
moved toward the surface, either
amount of pressure
at a “Mantle Plume,” or at a
increases
“Mantle Convection Cell”
- It is the heat energy
released from the friction
Flux Melting
that occurred between the
- Rock is close to its melting point
outer core and the mantle
and coolant is added to the rock,
the melting temperature is
reduced and partial melting
starts.
- -As the magma moves upwards, it
interacts with the surrounding
rock, initiating partial melting
onto other rocks.
Intrusion
- A magma that moves up into a
volcano without erupting
- Plutonism
- refers to all sorts of
igneous geological
activities taking
place below the
earth’s surface
- Plutonites are
purifies
polycarbonate:
granite

Extrusion
- Eruptions of magmatic material
that cause land formation on the
surface of the earth
- Volcanism
- Used to describe all
geological
phenomena that
occur on the natural
terrestrial surface
such as the eruption
of volcanoes and
creation of hot
springs
- Volcanites: scoria
and obsedian