Page 413 - Geosystems An Introduction to Physical Geography 4th Canadian Edition

12 .3
PROCESSES AND LANDSCAPES OF THE GEOLOGIC CYCLE
HYDROLOGIC CYCLE
Earth’s water cycles continuously among the atmosphere, hydrosphere, lithosphere, and biosphere.
Sources of Energy:
Solar energy provides the heat necessary for water to evaporate. Gravity causes precipitation to fall.
Example of systems interaction:
Water weathers, erodes, and deposits sediments— processes that are part of the rock cycle.
These layers of sandstone in Canyonlands National Park, Utah formed from particles of other rock, pressed and cemented together. [Tom Grundy/Shutterstock.]
During the monsoon in India, atmospheric moisture streams inland from the Indian Ocean and falls as heavy rains. [Annie Owen/Getty Images.]
12 .3a
12 .3b
12 .3c
ROCK CYCLE
The processes that form igneous, sedimentary, and metamorphic rocks operate so that each rock can enter the cycle and be transformed into other rock types.
Sources of Energy:
Solar energy drives the processes involved in weathering, eroding, and transporting sediment. Gravity causes sediment deposition and compaction. Earth's internal heat causes melting of rock.
Example of systems interaction:
Igneous rock forms from the cooling and hardening of molten rock, a process that is part of the tectonic cycle.
TECTONIC CYCLE
Earth’s plates diverge, collide, subduct, and slide past each other, changing the continents and ocean basins and causing earthquakes, volcanoes, and mountain building.
Tectonic processes produced Indonesia’s many active volcanoes, including these in Bromo National Park, Indonesia. [Somchai Buddha/Shutterstock.]
Sources of Energy:
Earth’s internal heat provides energy that powers plate motions and melts rock to form magma. Gravity drives the subduction of lithospheric plates.
Example of systems interaction:
Volcanic activity releases gases and particles that change the atmosphere, and thus affect the hydrologic cycle.
Explain: How could processes in the tectonic cycle contribute to the formation of metamorphic rock in the rock cycle?
GEOquiz
1. Infer: How could mountain building (tectonic cycle) affect 2. Apply concepts: Describe the role of exogenic and weather and climate (hydrologic cycle)? endogenic processes in the rock cycle.
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geosystems in action 12The GeoloGic cycle