Sculpting Earth's Surface ch5-7

• factors that affect the rate of weathering: parents material, climate, organisms, slope, and time
• Infiltration- waters ability to seep into the soil
• Runoff- excess water that cannot breach through the soil, so it flows over surfaces into rivers and lakes
• Transpiration- when plants absorb water and release it into the atmosphere
• The three types of mechanical weathering are: frost wedging, unloading, and biological activity
• Frostwedging- when after many freeze to thaw cycles of the water found in the cracks of rocks, the rock cracks open
• Chemical weathering- that transformation of rock into one or more new compounds
• The most important agent of chemical weathering is water
• Physical/ Mechanical weathering- when physical forces break rock into smaller pieces WITHOUT changing the rocks mineral composition