Sunday, September 3, 2017

Geology Time!: Weekly Blog #2

Image result for geology
http://geologydegree.org/career-options-geology-majors/
Summary:

This week in science, we learned about the different states of rocks. These states of rocks are igneous, sedimentary, and metamorphic.Igneous rock is formed form magma or lava being cooled down and hardens. Sedimentary rock is formed form sediments being pressed together into a rock. Metamorphic rock is formed when existing rocks go through heat and pressure. The changes from each of these forms to the next is known as the rock cycle. The law of uniformitarianism is the law that processes that happened in the past are recurring until today. We also learned about landforms such as the oceanic crust and the continental crust. Following this, we learned about divergent, convergent, and transform boundaries.

S&EP: Using Models

This week, we had the privilege  of doing a lab in class. This lab involved using starburst to represent the changes that rocks go through. In this lab. we were able to construct a conceptual models of the changes that a rock goes through. These states being, metamorphic, igneous and sedimentary rock. I was able to represent and understand phenomena when I preformed simulations of each of these changes. For the metamorphic rock, we pressed together all the sediment (starburst bits) into a bumpy ball like shape. We then applied pressure to make it into a sedimentary rock that resembled a smooth ball. With a lot more pressure we then flattened the shape into a metamorphic rock. After this we took part of the flattened shape and heated is up in a microwave. This came out as magma (melted starburst) the cooled and hardened into an "igneous rock"

XCC: Stability and Change

There is a great example of stability and change in something like the rock cycle. For an example, The state of rock is constantly changing from one state to the next. The system that I will use as this example would be of course the rock cycle. The changes gone through from igneous, metamorphic, and sedimentary are interchangeable. Each of these processes can go from either one to the next. For an example, a metamorphic rock can turn into a sedimentary rock through weathering and erosion. There is a sense of instability in this system because each of these states are constantly changing from each part of the cycle to the next. It might be in one state for an extended period of time, but will eventually change into something totally new. It is stable however, because these changes will happen quite slowly, and each state of rock has its fair share before changing to another.



No comments:

Post a Comment