Showing posts with label Rocks. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Rocks. Show all posts

Sunday, May 11, 2014

Types of Mountains


Mountains make up a large proportion of the earth's surface. Based on their mode of formation, four main types of mountains can be distinguished.

1.     Fold mountains. These mountains are by far the most widespread and also the most important. They are caused by large-scale earth's movements, when stresses may be due to the increased load of the underlying rocks, flow movements in the mantle, magnetic intrusions into the crust, or the expansion or contraction of some part of the earth. When such stresses are initiated, the rocks are subjected to compressive forces that produce wrinkling or folding along the lines of weakness. Folding effectively shortens the earth's crust, creating from the original level surface a series of waves. The upfolded waves are called anticlines and the troughs or downfolds are synclines.

Earth Movements and the Major Landforms


The face of the earth is constantly being reshaped by the agents of denudation - running water, rain, frost, sun, wind, glaciers and waves, so that our present landforms are very varied and diverse. But these agents only modify the pattern of mountains, plateaux and pains which have been modelled by movements of the earth's crust.
Since the dawn of geological time, no less than nine orogenic or mountain building movements have taken place, folding and fracturing the earth's crust. Some of them occurred in Pre-Cambrian times 600-3500 million years ago. The three more recent orogenics are the Caledonian, Hercynian and

Uses of Rocks


Rocks are very important economically. The thin surface layer of the earth, formed by the break-down of the rocks in various ways and by various processes, is known as soil. The geographer is, among other things, interested in the soil as the medium in which plants grow, hence the scene of production of most of man's food and most of his raw materials.
Man's vital water supply is connected with the nature of the rocks. Part of our drinking water is got by sinking wells to tap the sub-surface water which is filtered naturally during its passage through the rocks. The amount of surface run-off in the form of rivers and springs affects the siting of

The Influence of Rock Types on Landscapes


The appearance and characteristic features of landforms are greatly influenced by the underlying rock type. Softer rocks like clay and shale are worn down much faster than harder rocks like granite.
The ancient rocks which dominate a great part of West Africa have been so greatly worn down by erosion that they now appear as peneplains. Granite domes for inselbergs have been formed where the old rocks resist erosion: and in some cases, such resistant high rocks produce high relief, such as the Jos Plateau of Nigeria, the Akwapim-Togo-Atacora ridges and the Birrimian uplands of Ghana, and the interior plateaux and mountains of Sierra Leone, Shales, schists and sandstones, being less resistant, form the much lower, rounded hills. Recent river sediments form flat plains.

Saturday, May 10, 2014

Metamorphic Rocks

All rocks whether igneous or sedimentary may become metamorphic or changed rocks under great heat and pressure. Their original character and appearance may be greatly altered by such forces, particularly during intense earth movements. In this manner, clay may be metamorphosed into slate, limestone into marble, sandstone into quartzite, granite into gneiss, shale into schist and coal into graphite.

Sedimentary Rocks


Sedimentary rocks are formed from sediment accumulated over long periods, usually under water. They are distinguished from the other rock types by their characteristic layer formation and are termed stratified rocks. The strata may vary in thickness from a few centimetres to many metres. The rocks may be coarse or fine-grained, soft or hard. The materials that form sedimentary rocks may be brought by streams, glaciers, winds or even animals. They are non-crystalline and often contain fossils of animals, plants and other micro-organisms. Sedimentary rocks are thus the most varied in their formation of all rocks. Sedimentary rocks are classified according to their age and different kinds of rocks formed during the same period are grouped together. It is

Igneous Rocks


Igneous rocks are formed by the cooling and solidification of molten rock (magma) from beneath the earth's crust. They are normally crystalline in structure. They do not occur in strata (layers) nor do they contain fossils. Igneous rocks may be subdivided on the basis of mineral composition. When they contain a high proportion of silica they are said to be acid. Acid igneous rocks, such as granite, are less dense and are lighter in colour than basic rocks. These contain a greater proportion of basic of basic oxides, e.g. of iron, aluminum or magnesium, and are thus denser and darker in colour.
In terms of origin there are two main classes of

Friday, May 9, 2014

The Classification Of Rocks


Rock Texture, Structure and Colour

Rock texture refers to the sizes of the mineral grains, that is, whether the rock is fine grained or coarse grained, dense glass or frothy glass. The texture of an igneous rock varies according to the environment in which solidification took place. Very rapid cooling of lava at the earth's surface results in a glassy texture. Moderately rapid cooling produces fine texture, while coarse textures are as a result of slow or gradual cooling of molten rock deep down in the crust. Textures of sedimentary rocks are recognizable on the basis of the size of the constituent grains and the minerals contained. Shale is a sedimentary rock formed from mud or clay and it is made up of particles of sand size 0.02mm - 2.00mm.
The colours of rocks are essentially a consequence of the minerals which make up the roc