EARTH SCIENCE

UNIT 9: EARTH PROCESS

EARTH PROCESS
 Are dynamics process at work in the Earth’s landforms and surfaces, the mechanics
involved, weathering, erosion, and plate tectonics, combine processes that are in some
respect destructive and in others constructive.

Endogenic and Exogenic Processes

Endogenic Processes
 Are processes of internal origin. These processes take place inside the globe and are
started by forces inside the Earth, leaving little impact from influences that take place
internally.
 Are those that are driven by the Earth’s vast heat engine. The movement of tectonic
plates is thought to be a product of convention currents in the mantle.
Exogenic Processes
 Are anything that happens outside the earth’s core such as the force of gravity, energy
from the sun.
 Those processes acting at the surface of the Earth and primarily driven by the solar
energy are called exogenic processes. For instance, wind is created by the variation in
pressure over distance (pressure gradient force).

Endogenous Processes Exogenic Processes

-Faulting -Weathering
-Folding -Erosion
-Volcanic -Deposition

Wind Erosion
 Is therefore an exogenic process. Erosion by rain is likewise driven by the initial
evaporation due to absorption.
DEFORMATION OF THE CRUST
Weathering
 Is the physical disintegration or chemical alteration of rocks at or near the Earth’s
surface.

DIFFERENT TYPES OF WEATHERING (MCB)

Mechanical or Physical Weathering
 Is the physical disintegration and reduction in the size of the rocks without their
chemical composition.
Chemical Weathering
 Decomposes, dissolves, alters, or weakens the rock through chemical processes to form
residual materials. Example are carbonation, hydration, oxidation, and solution.
Biological Weathering
 Is the disintegration or decay of rocks and minerals caused by chemical or physical
agents of organisms. Examples would be organic activity from lichen and algae, rock
disintegration by plant or root growth, burrowing and tunneling organisms, and acid
secretion.

Types of Mechanical Weathering (FEAST)

Exfoliation
 Is a mechanical weathering process whereby pressure in a rock is released along parallel
alignments near the surface of the bedrock and layers or slabs of the rocks along these
alignments break off from the bedrock and move downhill by gravity.
Frost Wedging
 Is a mechanical process caused by the freeze-thaw action of water that is trapped
between cracks in the rock.
Temperature Changes
 Daily diurnal and seasonal temperature changes affect certain minerals and facilitate the
mechanical weathering bedrock.
 Repeated daily heating and cooling of rock;
 Different minerals expand and contract at different rates causing stresses along mineral
boundaries.
Salt Wedging
 Occurs when salt crystallizes out of solution as water evaporates.
Abrasion
 Occurs when rocks collide against each other while they are transported by water,
glacial ice, wind and gravitational force.
Types of Chemical Weathering (CHOS)
Carbonation
 This is the process by which carbon dioxide and rainwater or moisture in the
surrounding environment chemically reacts to produce carbonic acid, a weak acid,
which reacts with carbonate materials in the rock.
Hydrolysis
 It is a chemical reaction between H+ and OH- ions in water and the minerals in the rock.
Hydration
 Is a process where mineral structure in the rock forms a weak bond with water which
causes the mineral grains to expand, creating stress which cause the disintegration of
the rock.
Oxidation
 Occurs when oxygen and water react with iron-rich minerals and weaken the structure
of the mineral.
Solution
 Occurs when minerals in rock dissolve directly into water.

Types of Biological Weathering (PLODEM)

Lichen, Algae and Decaying Plants
 Organisms such as lichens and algae often live on bare rock and extract minerals from
the rock by ion-exchange mechanism.
Plants Roots
 The most common from biological weathering is when plant roots penetrate into cracks
and crevices of rocks and cause the rock to split or break into smaller particles through
mechanical weathering.
Organism Activity
 Burrowing, tunneling, and acid secretion of organism are another form of biological
weathering that chemically or mechanical contribute to weathering.
Differential Weathering
 Weathering rates will not only vary depending on the type of weathering process,
whether it is mechanical, chemical, or biological, but they will also vary depending on
the rock material that is being weathered.
Mass Wasting
 Is a rapid form of erosion that works primarily under the influence of gravity in
combination with other erosional agents.
Erosion
 Is the geological process in which earthen materials are worn away and transported by
natural forces such as wind or water.
Types of Mass Wasting
Rock Falls
 Rock falls occurs when rock becomes dislodged because its change in potential energy
becomes too great to maintain, and the potential energy becomes kinetic energy which
cause the rock fragment to fall, restoring equilibrium.
Landslides
 Are mass wasting events where large amounts of weathered rock materials slide a
hillslope or mountain side primarily by gravity-related erosion.
Debris and Mudflows
 Are mass wasting events that form when heavy rainfalls produce large amount of runoff
that transport eroded soils, sediments and plant debris down slope where the flows
eventually spread out across valley bottoms.
Slump
 Are fairly common form of mass wasting where the rock or soil collapses, breaks off
from the hill slope, rotates slightly, and slumps downhill.
Creep
 Is the slowest mass wasting process that involves a very gradual downhill movement of
soil, bedrock, and weathered rock fragments.
Deposition
 Is a constructive process that lies down or places weathered and eroded materials in a
location that is different from their source.
 
Continental Drift Hypothesis
 In the early 1900’s, Alfred Wegener set forth his continental drift hypothesis.
EVIDENCES OF CONTINENTAL DRIFT HYPOTHESIS
The Continental Jigsaw Puzzle
 Wegener first suspected that the continents might have been joined when he noticed
remarkable similarity between coastlines on opposite sides of South Atlantic.
Fossils that Match Across the seas
 Wegener cite an article about the fossil that can be an evidence for the existence of a
land bridge connecting South America and Africa.
Rejecting the Hypothesis
 One of the objections to Wegener’s hypothesis was his inability to provide a mechanism
that was capable of moving the continents across the globe.
Plate Tectonics
 Plate tectonic theory is based on a model of Earth in which rigid lithosphere, consisting
of oceanic and continental crust about 100km of underlying upper mantle and made up
of a number of pieces known as plates.
Plate Boundaries
 Lithospheric plates move as coherent units relative to all plates. Although the interiors
of plates may experiences some deformation, all major interactions among individual of
plates (and therefore most deformation) occur along their boundaries.

Types of Boundaries
Divergent Plate Boundaries (constructive margins)
 Where to plates move apart, resulting in upwelling of material from the mantle to
create new seafloor.
Convergent Plate Boundaries (destructive margins )
 Where two plates move together, resulting in oceanic lithosphere being thrust beneath
an overriding plate eventually to be reabsorbed into the mantle.
Transform Fault Boundaries (conservative margins)
 Where two plates grind past each other without the production or destruction of
lithosphere.