These broken pieces of rock are called sediments. The word “Sedimentary” comes from the root word “Sediment”. Sedimentary rocks are usually formed in water. Sedimentary rocks are formed from broken pieces of rocks.

is dissolved, worn away or broken down into smaller and smaller pieces. Erosion happens when rocks and sediments are picked up and moved to another place by ice, water, wind or gravity. Mechanical weathering physically breaks up rock.

It’s a process called weathering. In desert regions, rocks expand slightly in the day as they are heated by the Sun. When their roots grow into cracks, they force the cracks to widen, causing the rock to break into smaller fragments. So, weathering is the breakdown of rock into smaller pieces.

What happens when they rub a piece of sandpaper across the surface? Many more crumbs break away from the surface!

quartz sandstones

Chemistry of Brick Firing Over the period of firing, brick clay becomes a metamorphic rock. Clay minerals break down, release chemically bound water, and change into a mixture of two minerals, quartz and mullite.

Transport of pebbles in a stream causes them to collide and rub against one another and the stream bed, and the resulting abrasion produces the familiar smooth and rounded shape of river rocks.

Answer. These pebbles form as the flowing water washes over rock particles on the bottom and along the shores of the river. Because river current is gentler than the ocean waves, river pebbles areusually not as smooth as beach pebbles.

Weathering is the physical and chemical breakdown of rock at the earth’s surface. The physical breakdown of rock involves breaking rock down into smaller pieces through mechanical weathering processes. These processes include abrasion, frost wedging, pressure release (unloading), and organic activity.

When rocks are worn down by weathering over time, they can be swept away by wind or by bodies of water. This process is called erosion. Erosion tends to occur in rocks weathered on the Earth’s surface.

Many forces are involved in weathering and erosion, including both natural and man-made causes.

• Physical Weathering. Physical or mechanical weathering is the disintegration of rock into smaller pieces.
• Chemical Weathering.
• Water Erosion.
• Wind Erosion.
• Gravity.

differential weathering is called when softer rocks wear away and leave harder rocks behind.

Quartz

Rocks also weather differently. Igneous rocks are usually solid and are more resistant to weathering. Intrusive igneous rocks weather slowly because it is hard for water to penetrate them. Sedimentary rocks usually weather more easily.

Certain types of rock are very resistant to weathering. Igneous rocks, especially intrusive igneous rocks such as granite, weather slowly because it is hard for water to penetrate them. Other types of rock, such as limestone, are easily weathered because they dissolve in weak acids.

Metamorphic rocks

talc

The strongest rock in the world is diabase, followed closely by other fine-grained igneous rocks and quartzite. Diabase is strongest in compression, tension, and shear stress. If mineral hardness is the determining factor of strength then diamond is technically the strongest rock in the world.

Diamond

Actually, gravity is the weakest of the four fundamental forces.

tungsten

As an example, you can scratch steel with a diamond, but you can easily shatter a diamond with a hammer. The diamond is hard, the hammer is strong. This makes the diamond incredibly hard and is why it is able to scratch any other material.

It doesn’t seem unreasonable to wonder whether diamonds are bulletproof, since diamond is the world’s hardest natural material. Diamonds are not however bulletproof in general, as while they are hard, they are not particularly tough and their brittleness will cause them to shatter when struck by a bullet.

If you ever find a diamond ring, or any lost property, don’t assume that you can keep it. Always attempt to find the owner if possible, or turn the item in to the police. Most states will allow finders to keep the property if the owner does not show up to claim it after a certain time.

Shape: Diamonds found at the Crater are typically smooth and well rounded. Their shape resembles a polished stone with smooth sides and rounded edges.

The chances of finding a diamond are 1 in 10,000,000. The chances of finding a diamond over 8 mm, in excess of 2 grams in weight are 1 in 1,000,000,000. That is one chance in a billion!

Kimberlite, also called blue ground, a dark-coloured, heavy, often altered and brecciated (fragmented), intrusive igneous rock that contains diamonds in its rock matrix. It has a porphyritic texture, with large, often rounded crystals (phenocrysts) surrounded by a fine-grained matrix (groundmass).

Diamond is only formed at high pressures. It is found in kimberlite, an ultrabasic volcanic rock formed very deep in the Earth’s crust.

The Argyle diamond mine remains the only economically viable source of lamproite diamonds. Olivine lamproite pyroclastic rocks and dikes are sometimes hosts for diamonds. The diamonds occur as xenocrysts that have been carried to the surface or to shallow depths by the lamproite diapiric intrusions.