Answer to Question #319111 in English for eddie

Question

The Rock Cycle, in conjunction to the Water Cycle, is responsible for the formation of three different types of rock over millions of years. Name these three (3) different types of rock and explain in your own words how each are formed.

Answer 1

There are three main types of rocks: sedimentary, igneous, and metamorphic. Each of these rocks are formed by physical changes such as melting, cooling, eroding, compacting, or deforming that are part of the rock cycle. Sedimentary rocks are formed from pieces of other existing rock or organic material.

Sedimentary Rocks. Sedimentary rocks are formed from pieces of other existing rock or organic material. There are three different types of sedimentary rocks: clastic, organic (biological), and chemical. Clastic sedimentary rocks, like sandstone, form from clasts, or pieces of other rock. Organic sedimentary rocks, like coal, form from hard, biological materials like plants, shells, and bones that are compressed into rock.

Metamorphic Rocks. Metamorphic rocks are rocks that have been changed from their original form by immense heat or pressure. Metamorphic rocks have two classes: foliated and nonfoliated. When a rock with flat or elongated minerals is put under immense pressure, the minerals line up in layers, creating foliation. Foliation is the aligning of elongated or platy minerals, like hornblende or mica, perpendicular to the direction of pressure that is applied. An example of this transformation can be seen with granite, an igneous rock. Granite contains long and platy minerals that are not initially aligned, but when enough pressure is added, those minerals shift to all point in the same direction while getting squeezed into flat sheets. When granite undergoes this process, like at a tectonic plate boundary, it turns into gneiss . Nonfoliated rocks are formed the same way, but they do not contain the minerals that tend to line up under pressure and thus do not have the layered appearance of foliated rocks.

 Igneous Rocks. Igneous rocks are formed when molten hot material cools and solidifies. Igneous rocks can also be made a couple of different ways. When they are formed inside of the earth, they are called intrusive, or plutonic, igneous rocks. If they are formed outside or on top of Earth’s crust, they are called extrusive, or volcanic, igneous rocks.