The concept of weathering sounds pretty weird, doesn't it? It is a process that takes place in the relief and that is easy to understand, as it refers to the transformation of rocks and the soils that make up the earth's surface.
Weathering consists ofset of physical, chemical and biological processes that cause rock wear over time. It is these processes that make, for example, that the rocks hit by the waves of the sea gradually transform themselves into the sands of the beaches. When a rock naturally breaks or dissolves, we say that it has gone through a process of weathering.
There are three types of weathering: o physicist, O chemical it's the biological.
Ophysical weatheringit consists of the mechanical breakage of rocks, which break up into somewhat smaller fragments or even into small grains, which we call sediments. This break – called “disaggregation” – can be caused by climate change, rainwater, wind and even ice, among numerous other factors.
Rock fractured by the action of physical weathering
Ochemical weatheringis the dissolution of the rocks or the chemical alteration of the minerals that are part of them. This process is usually caused by water, which mixes with organic materials, reacts with carbon dioxide and forms an acidic substance that dissolves the rocks.
An example of chemical weathering is the transformation of some types of minerals into clay or also the drilling of rocks by water, as in the image below.
Chemical weathering generated the dissolution of this rock by water, forming some holes
already the biological weatheringit consists of the breaking or dissolution of rocks carried out by living beings, usually small insects or micro-organisms. This is considered to be the least important, as it generates few impacts on the Earth's surface.
Weathering is an important process of transformation of the relief over time and is one of the elements that make up the erosion, which is nothing more than the wear, transport and deposition of sediments and rock particles, also acting on the soil. between callsweathering agents(which cause weathering), we can mention water, wind, climate and living beings.
By Me. Rodolfo Alves Pena
