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| the breakdown of rock into smaller and smaller pieces |
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| the breakdown of rock into smaller pieces by physical means |
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| the mechanical weathering process in which water seeps into cracks in rock, freezes, then expands, opening the cracks even wider |
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| the action of rocks and sediment grinding against each other and wearing away exposed surfaces |
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| the chemical breakdown of rocks and minerals into new substances |
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| precipitation that contains acids due to air pollution |
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| the process by which softer less weather resistant rocks waer away leaving harder more weather resistant rocks behind |
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| the layer of rock beneath soil |
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| the organic part of the soil |
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the top layer of soil
(conatins the most humus) |
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| the process by which sediment moved by erosion is dropped and comes to rest |
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| a loose mixture of small mineral fragments and organic materail |
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| an enormous mass of moving ice |
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| a naturally formed inorganic substance that has a definite structure |
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| a naturally occuring solid mixture of one or more minerals and organic matter |
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| the continual process by which new rock forms from old rock material |
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| tiny pieces of rock that have been weathered and eroded off larger pieces of rock |
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| forms when hot, liquid rock, or magma cools and solidifies |
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| forms when magma intrudes, or pushes into surrounding rock below the Earth's surface- usually has a coarse grained texture |
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| forms from magma that erupts, or extrudes, onto the surface of the Earth- usually has a fine grained texture |
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| forms at or near the Earth's surface due to compaction and cementation- can be clastic, chemical or organic |
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| the layers that are often visible in sedimentary rock |
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| the process in which sedimentary rocks are arranged in layers |
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| rocks in which the structure, texture or composition of the rock have changed- they can be foliated or non-foliated |
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| the testure of metamorphic rock in which mineral grains are arranged in bands |
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| determining wheter an object or event is younger or older than other objects or events |
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| the process of establishing the age of an object by determining the number of years it has existed |
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| the principle that states that younger rocks lie above older rocks in an undisturbed sequence |
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| an ideal sequence of rock layers that contains all the known fossils and rock formations on Earth, arranged from oldest to youngest |
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| a surface that represents a missing part of the geologic column- can be a disconformity, nonconformity or angular conformity |
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| the remains or physical evidence of an organism preserved by geological processes |
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| any naturally preserved evidence of animal acivity; footprints, burrows and coprolite are examples |
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| a mark or cavity in a rock where a plant or animal was buried |
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| an object that is created when sediment fills the mold and becomes a rock |
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| the fossils of organisms that lived during a relatively short, well defined geologic time span |
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