POINTERS TO REVIEW • Pollutants, such as sulfur and nitrogen, from
fossil fuel burning, create sulfuric and nitric acid.
✓ WASTE MANAGEMENT Sulfuric and nitric acids are the two main ✓ PHYSICAL WEATHERING components of acid rain, which accelerate ✓ CHEMICAL WEATHERING chemical weathering. ✓ EARTH’S INTERIOR • Hydrolysis: Molecules of minerals chemically ✓ MAGMATISM combine with water molecules. The process of ✓ METAMORPHISM hydrolysis is vitally important to feldspars. Clay ✓ TYPES OF STRESS began as feldspars and was dissolved through the WASTE GENERATION & MANAGEMENT reaction process of hydrolysis. So, hydrolysis converts feldspars to clay. Point Source Pollution- coming from a single point, such • Carbonation: Carbon dioxide in the air can react as a factory or sewage treatment plant. It is easier to with water to form carbonic acid. When it trace as they can be linked to specific discharge points precipitates, this weak acid enters the cracks in brought by industrialization. rocks chemically reacting with it. Non-Point Source Pollution- runoff (excess water that • Oxidation: Occurs when free ions of oxygen join flows over the land surface instead of being absorbed with iron (or magnesium) rich minerals to create into groundwater or evaporating) from urban and new minerals like hematite and limonite. Free suburban areas. Discarded trash can become a oxygen within rainwater combines with iron to component of non-point source pollution runoff. create new minerals. The red color of rust is because of the presence of iron Organic domestic waste poses a serious threat, since they ferment, creating conditions favorable to the EARTH’S INTERIOR survival and growth of microbial pathogens.
Waste dumped near a water source also causes
contamination of the water body or the groundwater source.
Disposal of hospital and other medical waste requires
special attention since this can create major health hazards.
WEATHERING
Physical weathering- breaks down rocks physically into
Why is the earth’s interior hot? smaller pieces without changing their chemical composition. • Primordial heat: the internal heat energy that accumulated throughout the Earth's early • Temperature change: rock surface expands when formation and dispersion 4 billion years ago. The heated and contracts when cooled. Mineral grains energy deposited during a planet's early are loosened and weakened, eventually breaking creation, known as accretional energy, is the down the rock. primary source of its internal heat. The kinetic • Freeze & thaw: water expands when it freezes, energy of colliding particles is converted to which makes the accumulated water in rock pores thermal energy stored in the core. and slits expand. • Frictional heating: The frictional heat left over • Moving water: the action of waves chips away from the collisions of large and small particles and produces cracks in rocks. that created Earth in the first place caused the Chemical weathering- alteration of rocks through subsequent frictional heat of redistribution of chemical reactions, leading to the formation of new minerals and structures. dense material within Earth by gravitational forces (e.g., sinking of iron to form the core). • Radiogenic heat: Radioactive decay of isotopes is a natural process; unstable elements like 238U (Uranium) or 40K (Potassium) stabilize with time and produce what we call daughter products: 206Pb (Lead) for Uranium and 40Ar (Argon) for Potassium. This process produces heat, representing 90% of the total heat inside the Earth.
How is magma formed?
• At about 30-65 km below the earth’s surface, the
temperature is high enough to melt rocks into magma. The reason why it is difficult to drill holes into the crust is that the temperature rises about 30 degrees for every kilometer. • The asthenosphere which is between 100-350km deep is so hot that most of the rock is melted. It flows very slowly because it is under intense pressure. Magma reaches temperatures between 600 degrees to 1400 degrees Celsius. • Magma develops within the upper mantle and • Mohorovicic discontinuity (Moho), the interface between the crust and the mantle. crust where the temperature and pressure conditions favor the molten state. Magma • Gutenberg discontinuity, the interface between collects in areas called magma chambers. the mantle and outer core. • The pool of magma in a magma chamber is layered. The least dense magma rises to the top • Lehman discontinuity, located between the while the densest sinks at the bottom of the liquid outer core and the solid inner core. chamber. MAGMATISM • During an eruption, ash and light-colored rocks are emitted from the least dense top layer Flux melting- When a substance such as water is added magma chamber, and the released magma from to hot rocks, the melting points of the minerals within the lower part of the chamber is dark, dense those rocks decrease. If a rock is already close to its volcanic rock. melting point, the effect of adding water can be enough to trigger partial melting. The added water is a flux, and METAMORPHISM this type of melting is called flux-induced melting. In other words, it enables melting at lower temperatures when volatile gases are added to mantle material.
Decompression melting - involves the upward
movement of Earth's mostly solid mantle. This hot material rises to an area of lower pressure through the process of convection. Areas of lower pressure always have a lower melting point than areas of high pressure. This reduction in overlying pressure, or decompression, enables the mantle rock to melt and form magma. amphiboles. These minerals will occur as alternating layers of black and white visible crystals. This type of rock may also form from the metamorphic alteration of a felsic igneous rock. In either case, the rock is called a gneiss (pronounced "nice") and it displays a crystalline texture.
TYPES OF STRESS
As metamorphism begins, the clay particles or flakes are
slowly heated and "squished" by the increasing pressure. Generally, the pressure imposed on the clay minerals is stronger in two directions than in others, and a compressional force begins to affect the minerals. Lower pressures cause only a slight change in the clay flakes in Compression stress that they are compressed very close together and become much more densely packed. • A type of stress that causes the rocks to push or Some of the clay flakes may begin to recrystallize into squeeze against one another. Mountains are a result of high-impact compression stress caused very small crystals of mica minerals. Any water remaining when two plates collide. in the clay is driven off. During this process, a more dense platy metamorphic rock called slate will form. This rock Tension stress very closely resembles shale; the difference can be determined by the fact that slate will "clink" like fine • Tension is the opposite of compression. It forces china when it is dropped, and only the shale will smell the rocks to pull apart. Two separate plates can "muddy" when it is wet. Because the clays have begun to move farther away from each other, or the ends recrystallize into micas in slate, this rock has a of one plate can move in different directions. microcrystalline texture. Shear stress As the process of metamorphism continues, additional pressure and temperature will cause the minerals to • Shear stress usually happens when two plates continue to recrystallize and become larger. The next rub against each other as they move in opposite stage in this transition will be the formation of directions. The friction of shear stress at the edges of the plate can cause earthquakes. a phyllite, which has slightly larger (but still microscopic) mica crystals than the slate. Because of the slightly larger crystals, the microcrystalline phyllite will display a characteristic "sheen" that resembles the shine of satin.
Continuing to increase the temperatures and pressures
will allow the minerals to recrystallize into still-larger crystals. At this stage, the mica crystals will become visible on the surface of the rock (as other minerals), and the rock will be called a schist and have what we describe as a crystalline texture.
Finally, temperatures and pressures may increase to the
point that the mica crystals can recrystallize into higher- temperature and pressure minerals such as feldspars and