Tuesday, January 18, 2011

Dynamic Earth; Rocks at Earth's Surface

Hello, this is another of the posts for the dynamic Earth website. This time I'm learning about rocks and mining. Enjoy and learn!

  • Rocks Made to Order
    • Every family uses 10 tons of rocks each year
    • The average home uses about 400 tons of gravel and concrete
    • Aggregate is rocks in all it's different forms; sand, gravel, crushed stone, etc.
    • They dig up rock, some of it being mined and some is taken from under water 
    • Roads are made from crushed stone, sand and gravel
    • Even the strongest roads can stay up only from 8 to 10 years
    • Roads are made up of four layers
  • Rocks Tell Stories
    • Minerals combine in different ways to make rocks
    • In each rock, minerals tell a different story
    • Most rocks are made mainly from three common minerals; Mica, quartz and feldspar
    • All rocks look different even though composed by same minerals
    • Minerals combine in different ways,this is reason for different looks
  • Water Recycles Rocks
    • Water creates, shapes and destroys rocks as it flows calmly
    • Cave deposits are made in human lifetimes and are very fragile
    • Because of this they are protected








This post about the dynamic Earth really got me interested (as I hope it did to you to) in rocks, for example I am asking myself now, 'How long does it take for minerals to combine and make rocks?', or, 'Is it OK if we use so much rock per year?'. The Earth amazes me more every day, and I learned a lot about this during this post, for example,'Different minerals combine in different ways to make different rocks.' That last fact was really fascinating to me because first of all, I had no idea how rocks were formed, and secondly, the fact that minerals make rocks! I hope you were as truly amazed by this post as I was while making it! 

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