Download - Rock Cycle Vocabulary
Rock Cycle Vocabulary
Rock
• a mixture of one or more minerals, volcanic glass, organic matter, or other
materials
Sedimentary Rock
• forms when sediments are compacted and cemented together or when minerals
are left behind by evaporation
Examples
Metamorphic Rock
• forms when heat and pressure act on igneous, metamorphic
or sedimentary rock and change its form or make up.
Examples
Igneous Rock
• intrusive or extrusive rock formed when hot magma cools
and hardens
Examples
Rock Cycle
• model that describes how rocks slowly change from one form to another through time
Example
Sediments
• loose materials such as rock fragments, dirt, silt, and sand
Magma
• hot, melted rock material beneath the Earth’s surface
Weathering
• surface process that breaks rocks into smaller pieces
(wind, rain, temperature, etc)
Erosion
• process in which surface materials (sediments) are worn
away and transported from one place to another by water,
wind, and glaciers
Deposition
• The process of eroded materials being moved and deposited in another place.
Cementation
• sedimentary rock-forming process in which large
sediments are held together by natural cements (matrix) like
evaporated mud
Compaction
• process that forms sedimentary rocks when layers
of small sediments are compressed by the weight of
the layers above