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Rock Cycles
Even rocks have a cycle. Rocks are continually circulating in the mantle
just below the crust of the earth. They are sometimes thrust up into the
crust due to convection currents. Imagine really thick jam slowly cooking
in a big pot on a stove. The jam is thick, and when it reaches a high
temperature, convection currents circulate through it. Occasionally big
bubbles of steam erupt from the jam and splash onto the top of the stove.
This is how rocks get thrust up onto the top of the crust from the boiling
mantle below. Rocks can also reach the surface when they are spit out
by volcanoes.
Once on the surface of the earth, rocks cool down. Over time, they are
broken up or worn down by weather, and the fragments are carried back
to the ocean by way of wind, rain, and the flow of rivers and streams.
All of these small pieces of rock collect as sediment at the bottom of
seas and oceans. The sediment slowly solidifies into rock and is sometimes
drawn back down in to the mantle at subduction zones or reaches the surface
again as sea levels change or plates collide.
Sample some of the following activities to learn more about rocks and
their cycles.
Places To Go | People
To See | Things To Do | Teacher
Resources | Bibliography
Places To Go
The following are places to go (some real and some virtual) to find out
about rocks and their cycles.
Discover
How Rocks are Formed
Go to the center of the earth to discover how sedimentary, metamorphic
and igneous rocks are formed.
 Grand Canyon Explorer
Virtually visit the Grand Canyon. The layer's of the earth's crust are
plainly visible there.
Devils
Tower National Monument
Visit Devil's Tower in Wyoming. The tower is a big hunk of igneous rock.
It was formed by magma solidifying in a vertical tube that was once the
heart of a volcano.
Ayers
Rock
Visit famous Ayers Rock in Australia. It is a sacred place to the aboriginal
people, and it is made of limestone which is a sedimentary rock.
Rock & Roll Hall
of Fame and Museum
Visit the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. (heh heh heh)
Mount
Rushmore
Visit Mount Rushmore. It's made from granite which is igneous rock.
Washington
Monument
Climb to the top of the Washington Monument. The exterior is made of white
marble which is a metamorphic rock. Marble is formed when limestone is
put under extreme pressure and heat. The interior of the monument is granite
which is an igneous rock.
Great
Pyramid of Khufu
Visit the Great Pyramid in Egypt. It's made from limestone which is a
sedimentary rock.
Easter
Island
Stroll along the beaches of Easter Island. Those big, mysterious statues
are made of volcanic tuff which is an igneous rock.
Great Sphinx
Visit the Great Sphinx in Egypt. It's made from limestone which is a sedimentary
rock.
People To See
 Ask a Geologist
Geologists are rock experts. Ask them anything.
James
Hutton
Meet James Hutton. He was from Scotland. He is considered to be the father
of modern geology.
William
Steig
Get to know Sylvester the donkey. By a set of strange circumstances, he
turned into a rock. (It may have been an igneous rock). Read all about
his adventures in William Steig's Sylvester and the Magic Pebble which
won a Caldecott Medal in 1970.
Things To Do
 Soil
Biological Communities
Discover the geological processes and cycles necessary to make dirt. It's
important to understand soil processes and how they contribute to the
health of our planet. It takes a long time to make good dirt. Five tons
of topsoil spread over an acre is only as thick as a dime. The basic ingredients
of soil are decaying plants and animals (organic matter) and fragments
of rock. The tiny gaps between the decaying material are filled with air,
water, bacteria, fungi, and tiny plants. Soil is home to many kinds of
creatures. More animals live in soil than in any other environment on
earth.
Sands
of the World
Learn all about sand.
Food
in Children's Literature and "Stone Soup"
Make some stone soup.
 The
Rock Cycle
Think about the differences between a rock and a mineral. Then view photos
of minerals at The
Mineral Gallery (http://mineral.galleries.com/) and The
Mineral and Gemstone Kingdom (http://www.minerals.net/) and photos
of rocks at Igneous
Rocks (http://www.env.duke.edu/eos/geo41/rks.htm).
The
Rock Cycle
Check out this diagram of the rock cycle to understand how rocks form.
What's
the Hardness of Your Mineral
Testing the hardness of a mineral can help you identify what it is. See
how to use your fingernail, a penny, a nail, or a piece of glass to check
the hardness of minerals. You can also identify minerals by doing a streak
test or by doing a cleavage test or acid test. Learn more about the hardness of minerals and about the Mohs
scale where talc is rated as a 1 and diamond is a 10.
Rock
Group Definitions
View a photo of each kind of rock.
 Sedimentary
Rock
Sediment is turned into sedimentary rock by two processes. First, the
particles are compressed and squeezed together. This makes the particles
interlock tightly. Then, water seeping through the sediment deposits tiny
crystals of mineral between the particles which cements them together
to form a solid mass. Learn more about these processes.
Metamorphic
Rock Pancakes
A metamorphic rock is formed when a previously existing rock has been
changed by great heat or great pressure. Use the recipe from this website
and make metamorphic rock pancakes.
 Mineral
Identification
All the different rocks in the world are made up of minerals. A mineral
is simply a chemical that forms naturally in the earth. There are several
thousand different kinds of minerals--but only about 30 of them are very
common. Some rocks contain just one kind of mineral, and other rocks
contain
many kinds of minerals. It all depends on how the rock was formed.
Utah State
Library
Check out Utah's official state rock.
Coal
Learn more about Utah's official rock.
Desert
Environment & Geology : Rocks, Gems & Minerals
Learn about the rocks and minerals that are in the Great Basin Desert
which is in part of Utah. Utah has a lot of topaz.
Teacher Resources
Hotlists from UEN provide internet sites to
visit to find out more about specific topics--in this case, the rock cycle!
(You can learn how to use this WWW
Activities tool created by UEN for Utah educators).
Virtual Field Trips are teacher and student-created
tours of curricular topics. (You can learn how to use this UEN Virtual
Field Trip tool created by UEN for Utah educators).
Lesson Plan/Webquests/
Activities
Bibliography
- Burton, Jane. The Nature and Science of Rocks. Milwaukee, WI : Gareth
Stevens Pub., 1998.
- Challoner, Jack. Rocks and Minerals. Milwaukee, WI : Gareth Stevens,
1999.
- Curtis, Neil.. Rocks and Minerals. New York : Oxford University Press,
1998.
- Kittinger, Jo S. A Look at Rocks : From Coal to Kimberlite. New York
: Franklin Watts, c1997.
- Morris, Neil. Rocks and Minerals. New York, N.Y. : Crabtree Pub. Co.,
c1998.
- Snedden, Robert. Rocks and Soils. Austin, Tex. : Raintree Steck-Vaughn,
1998.
- Staedter, Tracy. Rocks and Minerals. Pleasantville, N.Y. : Reader's
Digest Children's Books, c1999.
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