What Is Mechanical or Physical

Weathering?
WHAT IS MECHANICAL WEATHERING AND ABRASION?

Mechanical or Physical Weathering Gallery. Photo (c) 2006 Andrew Alden, licensed
to About.com ( fair use policy)

Mechanical weathering is the set of weathering processes that break apart rocks into
particles (sediment) through physical processes.

The most common form of mechanical weathering is the freeze-thaw cycle. Water
seeps into holes and cracks in rocks. The water freezes and expands, making the
holes larger. Then more water seeps in and freezes. Eventually, the freeze-thaw cycle
can cause rocks to split apart.

Abrasion is another form of mechanical weathering; it's the process of sediment

particles rubbing against each other. This occurs mainly in rivers (as in this example
from Nevada's Truckee River) and at the beach.

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ALLUVIUM

Mechanical or Physical Weathering Gallery. Photo courtesy Ron Schott of Flickr

under Creative Commons license

Alluvium is sediment that has carried by and deposited from running water. Like this
example from Kansas, alluvium tends to be clean and sorted.

Alluvium is young sediment—freshly eroded rock particles that have come off the
hillside and been carried by streams. Alluvium is pounded and ground into finer and
finer grains (by abrasion) each time it moves downstream. The process can take
thousands of years. The feldspar and quartz minerals in alluvium weather slowly
into surface minerals: clays and dissolved silica. Most of that material eventually (in
a million years or so) ends up in the sea, to be slowly buried and turned into new
rock.

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BLOCK WEATHERING

Mechanical or Physical Weathering Gallery. Photo (c) 2004 Andrew Alden, licensed
to About.com ( fair use policy)

Blocks are boulders formed through the process of mechanical weathering.

Solid rock, like this granitic outcrop on Mount San Jacinto in southern California,
fractures into blocks by forces of mechanical weathering. Every day, water seeps into
cracks in the granite. Every night the cracks expand as the water freezes. Then, the
next day, water trickles further into the expanded crack. The daily cycle of
temperature also affects the different minerals in the rock, which expand and
contract at different rates and cause the grains to loosen.

Between these forces, the work of tree roots and earthquakes, mountains are steadily
dismantled into blocks that tumble down the slopes. As blocks work their way loose
and form steep deposits of talus, their edges begin to wear down and they officially
become boulders. When erosion wears them down smaller than 256 millimeters
across, they become classified as cobbles.

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CAVERNOUS WEATHERING

Mechanical or Physical Weathering Gallery. Photo courtesy Martin Wintsch of Flickr

under Creative Commons license

Roccia Dell'Orso, "Bear Rock," is a large outcrop on Sardinia with deep tafoni, or
large weathering cavities, sculpting it.

Tafoni are large rounded pits that are formed through a physical process called
cavernous weathering, which starts when water brings dissolved minerals to the rock
surface. When the water dries, the minerals form crystals that force small particles to
flake off the rock. Tafoni are most common along the coast, where seawater brings
salt to the rock surface. The word comes from Sicily, where spectacular honeycomb
structures form in the coastal granites. Honeycomb weathering is a name for
cavernous weathering that produces small, closely spaced pits called alveoli.

Notice that the surface layer of rock is harder than the interior. This hardened crust
is essential to make tafoni; otherwise, the whole rock surface would erode more or
less evenly.

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COLLUVIUM

Mechanical or Physical Weathering Gallery Glenwood Springs, Colorado. Photo (c)

2010 Andrew Alden, licensed to About.com ( fair use policy)

Colluvium is sediment that has moved downhill to the bottom of the slope as a result
of soil creep and rain. These forces, caused by gravity, yield an unsorted sediment of
all particle sizes, ranging from boulders to clay. There is relatively little abrasion to
round the particles.

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EXFOLIATION

Mechanical or Physical Weathering Gallery. Photo courtesy Josh Hill of Flickr under
Creative Commons license

Sometimes rocks weather by peeling off in sheets rather than eroding grain by grain.
This process is called exfoliation.

Exfoliation can occur in thin layers on individual boulders, or it can take place in
thick slabs as it does here, at Enchanted Rock in Texas.

The great white granite domes and cliffs of the High Sierra, like Half Dome, owe their
appearance to exfoliation. These rocks were emplaced as molten bodies, or plutons,
deep underground, raising the Sierra Nevada range. The usual explanation is that
erosion then unroofed the plutons and took away the pressure of the overlying rock.
As a result, the solid rock acquired fine cracks through pressure-release jointing.
Mechanical weathering opened up the joints further and loosened these slabs. New
theories about this process have been suggested, but are not yet widely accepted.

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FROST HEAVE

Mechanical or Physical Weathering Gallery. Photo courtesy Steve Alden; all rights
reserved

The mechanical action of frost, arising from the expansion of water as it freezes, has
lifted the pebbles above the soil here. Frost heave is a common problem for roads:
water fills cracks in asphalt and lifts sections of road surface during the winter. This
often leads to the creation of potholes.

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GRUS

Mechanical or Physical Weathering Gallery. Photo (c) 2004 Andrew Alden, licensed
to About.com ( fair use policy)

Grus is a residue formed by weathering of granitic rocks. Mineral grains are gently
teased apart by physical processes to form clean gravel.

Grus ("groos") is crumbled granite that forms by physical weathering. It’s caused by
hot-and-cold cycling of the daily temperatures, repeated thousands of times,
especially on rock that is already weakened from chemical weathering by
groundwater.

The quartz and feldspar that make up this white granite separate into clean
individual grains, without any clay or fine sediment. It has the same makeup and
consistency of the finely crushed granite you would spread on a path. Granite is not
always safe for rock climbing because a thin layer of grus can make it slippery. This
pile of grus has accumulated along a roadcut near King City, California, where the
basement granite of the Salinian block is exposed to dry, hot summer days and cool,
dry nights.

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HONEYCOMB WEATHERING

Mechanical or Physical Weathering Gallery From stop 32of the California

Subduction Transect. Photo (c) 2005 Andrew Alden, licensed to About.com ( fair use
policy)

Sandstone at San Francisco's Baker Beach has many closely spaced, small alveoli
(cavernous weathering pits) due to the action of salt crystallization.

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ROCK FLOUR

Mechanical or Physical Weathering Gallery. U.S. Geological Survey photo by Bruce

Molnia

Rock flour or glacial flour is raw rock ground by glaciers to the smallest possible size.

Glaciers are huge sheets of ice that move very slowly over the land, carrying along
boulders and other rocky residue. Glaciers grind their rocky beds exceeding small,
and the smallest particles are the consistency of flour. Rock flour is quickly altered to
become clay. Here two streams in Denali National Park merge, one full of glacial rock
flour and the other pristine.

The rapid weathering of rock flour, coupled with the intensity of glacial erosion, is a
significant geochemical effect of widespread glaciation. In the long term, over
geologic time, the added calcium from eroded continental rocks helps pull carbon
dioxide from the air and reinforces global cooling.

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SALT SPRAY

Mechanical or Physical Weathering Gallery. Photo (c) 2006 Andrew Alden, licensed
to About.com ( fair use policy)

Salt water, splashed into the air by breaking waves, causes widespread honeycomb
weathering and other erosive effects near the world's seacoasts.

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TALUS OR SCREE

Mechanical or Physical Weathering Gallery. Photo courtesy Niklas Sjöblom of Flickr

under Creative Commons license

Talus, or scree, is the loose rock created by physical weathering. It typically lies on a
steep mountainside or at the base of a cliff. This example is near Höfn, Iceland.

Mechanical weathering breaks down exposed bedrock into steep piles and talus
slopes like this before the minerals in the rock can alter into clay minerals. That
transformation occurs after the talus is washed and tumbled downhill, turning
to alluvium and eventually into soil.

Talus slopes are dangerous terrain. A small disturbance, such as your misstep, can
trigger a rock slide that may injure or even kill you as you go downhill with it.
Additionally, there is no geological information to be gained from walking on scree.

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WIND ABRASION

Mechanical or Physical Weathering Gallery Ventifacts from the Gobi Desert. Photo
(c) 2012 Andrew Alden, licensed to About.com ( fair use policy)

Wind can wear away rocks in a process like sandblasting where conditions are right.
The results are called ventifacts.

Only very windy, gritty places meet the conditions needed for wind abrasion.
Examples of such places are glacial and periglacial places like Antarctica and sandy
deserts like the Sahara.

High winds can lift sand particles as large as a millimeter or so, bouncing them along
the ground in a process called saltation. A few thousand grains might hit pebbles like
these over the course of a single sandstorm. Signs of wind abrasion include a fine
polish, fluting (grooves and striations), and flattened faces that may intersect in
sharp but not jagged edges. Where winds come persistently from two different
directions, wind abrasion can carve several faces into stones. Wind abrasion can
carve softer rocks into hoodoo rocks and, at the largest scale, landforms
called yardangs.