Weathering

Rationale: Haloclasty (salt weathering) is a physical weathering process driven by the crystallization pressure of salts in rock pores. Carbonation, hydrolysis, and oxidation are chemical weathering processes.

Rationale: Quartz crystallizes last in Bowen's Reaction Series under low temperatures and pressures, making it exceptionally stable against chemical and mechanical weathering according to Goldich's series.

Rationale: High temperatures accelerate chemical reaction rates (Van't Hoff's rule) and abundant precipitation provides the necessary moisture and leaching agents, maximizing chemical weathering in tropical rainforest regimes.

Rationale: Exfoliation domes (like Stone Mountain in the USA) form when deeply buried intrusive igneous rocks are exposed by erosion, causing pressure release (unloading) and subsequent expansion and fracturing in concentric sheets.

Rationale: Basalt and granite possess systematic joint networks. Chemical weathering penetrates these joints, attacking block corners from multiple directions and eroding them into rounded, concentric spheres.

Rationale: Hydrolysis replaces cations in silicate structures with hydrogen ions from water, converting feldspars into secondary clay minerals (like kaolinite) while releasing soluble ions.

Rationale: Carbonation involves carbonic acid reacting with calcium carbonate in limestone, dissolving the rock to create subterranean caverns, sinkholes, and distinctive karst landscapes.

Rationale: Water expands by approximately 9% upon freezing, generating tremendous internal pressures (up to 2000 kg/cm²) that easily fracture competent rocks.

Rationale: Hot deserts experience extreme diurnal temperature ranges, causing differential thermal expansion and contraction of minerals, leading to granular disintegration and thermal exfoliation.

Rationale: Regolith is the blanket of weathered rock, mineral debris, and soil that rests on unweathered solid bedrock beneath it.

Rationale: Chelation is a biochemical process where organisms (lichens, mosses, bacteria) release organic compounds that chemically breakdown rock minerals.

Rationale: Iron-bearing minerals like biotite, pyrite, and olivine oxidize when exposed to oxygen and water, forming limonite, hematite, and goethite, which impart reddish-yellow hues.

Rationale: Formulated by Julius Büdel, etchplains are created through a two-stage process involving deep basal chemical weathering (etching) followed by the removal of the saprolite mantle.

Rationale: Hydration involves the reversible incorporation of water molecules into mineral crystal structures (e.g., anhydrite turning to gypsum), whereas hydrolysis involves ionic decomposition.

Rationale: Coarse-grained rocks like granite possess minerals with different thermal expansion coefficients, causing internal stresses when heated and cooled rapidly.

Rationale: Humid tropical regions provide continuous warmth and moisture, sustaining deep chemical weathering profiles (saprolite) that can exceed tens of meters in thickness.

Rationale: The addition of water to anhydrous calcium sulfate (anhydrite) forms gypsum through hydration, accompanied by significant volumetric expansion.

Rationale: Granular disintegration occurs when coarse-grained rocks disintegrate crystal by crystal due to differential thermal expansion or chemical decay of binding agents.