Rock Cycle

• Rocks at the Surface

  Weathering -> Sediment
• Sediment

  Erosion, Transport, Deposition -> Sedimentary Sequence
• Sedimentary Sequence

  Compaction, Cementation -> Sedimentary Rock
• Sedimentary Rock

  Metamorphism -> Metamorphic Rock

  OR

  Uplift -> Rocks at the Surface
• Metamorphic Rock

  Partial Melt -> Magma

  OR

  Uplift -> Rocks at the surface
• Magma

  Eruption/Rising -> Extrusive Igneous

  OR

  Crystallisation/Rising -> Intrusive Igneous
• Extrusive/Intrusive Igneous


  Uplift or Erosion -> Rocks at the Surface
• Where are rock cycle processes most active?

  Plate Margins - Particularly subduction zones
• Catatrophism


  Biblical view that all landforms created by sudden catastrophic events
• Gradualism


  Huttons idea that geological processes operated very slowly and given enough time could create all the landforms he observed
• Uniformitarianism


  Maintains that the same earth processes at work today have occurred throughout geological time and this notion helped develop the idea of the rock cycle