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What is the Rock Cycle?
The rock cycle
is the name given to the process
where rocks are formed,
changed, broken and melted
as shown in the picture below.
How does the Rock Cycle work?
It is the movement
of tectonic plates
that makes the rock cycle
happen. Hot magma can cool
to form igneous rocks.
Fast cooling on the surface
makes basalt
and slow cooling
inside the crust makes granite.
When tectonic plates
collide
the enormous forces
can produce
metamorphic rocks
and rocks inside the Earth's
crust can
become
pushed up onto the surface by a process
called uplift.
Surface rocks
are exposed to weathering
and erosion
which makes sediments. Burial
of sediments produces
sedimentary rock
inside the Earth's crust. Any rock
in the crust
can be pushed to the surface by uplift
or dragged down
towards the mantle where it
can melt and form new
magma.
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