| Term | Definition |
|---|
| Abrasion | the wearing down of rock particles by friction due to water or wind or ice |
| Butte | a hill that rises abruptly from the surrounding region |
| Carbonation | chemical weathering carbon dioxide dissolves in water, carbonic acid is formed creating chemical changes. |
| Chemical | produced by or used in a reaction involving changes in atoms or molecules |
| Weathering | the decompocition and disintegration of rocks and minerals at the earth's surface by a mechanical and chemical process |
| Creep | Very slow downslope movement; more common in soil (often by frost heaving) than in rock |
| Erosion | (geology) the mechanical process of wearing or grinding something down (as by particles washing over it) |
| Exfoliation | The stripping of concentric rock slabs from the outer surface of a rock mass. |
| Horizon | a specific layer or stratum of soil or subsoil in a vertical cross section of land |
| Humus | partially decomposed organic matter |
| Hydrolysis | a chemical reaction in which water reacts with a compound to produce other compounds |
| Ice wedging | water trapped in rocks freezes and expands forcing the rocks apart |
| Landform | a feature of topography formed by the processes that shape earth's surface |
| Landslide | a slide of a large mass of dirt and rock down a mountain or cliff |
| Laterite | a red soil produced by rock decay |
| Leaching | water moving downward through the horizons dissolves and carries minerals into lower horizons by the process of |
| Mass movement | the movement of a large mass of sediment or a section of land down a slope |
| Mechanical | This type of weathering is just breaking rocks into smaller parts |
| Mesa | flat tableland with steep edges |
| Monadnock | a granite peak that rises suddenly above the surrounding area; found in the Piedmont area |
| Mudflow | the flow of a mass of mud or rock downhill |
| Oxidation | the reaction that happens when iron rusts |
| Peneplain | Areas that have become almost flat bc of erosion. Hills and rocks remain (monadnocks) |
| Regolith | End product of weathering; rocky layer that overlies and protects unaltered bedrock |
| Rockfall | Most sudden form of mass movement |
| Sheet erosion | peeling off thin layers of soil from the land surface; accomplished primaril by wind and water |
| Slump | Can occur in rock or soil; refers to a slide that moved only a short distance, often with a rotational component to the moving |
| Soil profile | a vertical section of soil from the ground surface to the parent rock |
| Solifluction | Slow downslope flow of water-saturated materials common to permafrost areas |
| Talus | a sloping mass of loose rocks at the base of a cliff |
Combine with other sets
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