Rock Cycle Process

Rock Formation and Cycle

• The ultimate source of all rocks on Earth's surface is magma, making igneous rocks the primary rocks.
• Igneous rocks can be weathered and converted into sedimentary rocks or transformed into metamorphic rocks by heat, pressure, and chemical change.
• Sedimentary and metamorphic rocks can be subducted back into the mantle, melted, and eventually released as magma to form new igneous rocks.

Types of Rocks

• Sedimentary rocks can be transformed into metamorphic rocks by heat, pressure, and chemical change.
• Metamorphic rocks can be weathered, buried, and converted into sedimentary rocks.

Minerals

• A mineral is a naturally occurring homogeneous solid with a definite chemical composition and highly ordered atomic arrangement, usually formed by inorganic processes.
• There are several thousand known mineral species, with about 100 constituting the major mineral components of rocks (rock-forming minerals).
• Minerals are the basic building blocks of the Earth's crust and the main ingredients of all rocks, deposits, and soils.
• Each rock-forming mineral has:
  • A definite chemical composition
  • A crystal structure
  • Characteristic physical properties (e.g., color, hardness, density)

Learn about the rock cycle process, from the formation of igneous rocks to the transformation into sedimentary and metamorphic rocks, and back into the mantle.