What is an exogenic process?

●Exogenic processes are external processes that occur at or near the surface of the Earth.
●They are a part of the rock cycle.
●The processes included are degradation processes (weathering, mass wasting, erosion, and
transportation) and aggradation processes (deposition).

Weathering
It is the physical breakdown and/or chemical alteration of rocks at or near the Earth’s
surface. It is a degradation process and does not involve movement of material.
●Mechanical weathering
●Chemical weathering

Mechanical Weathering
Also known as disintegration, is the breaking up of large rocks into smaller fragments without
changing the mineral composition of the rock.
●Biological activity
●Unloading
●Insolation weathering
●Freeze-thaw weathering
●Salt crystal growth

Unloading

- This occurs when overlying rock is eroded away which causes the outer rock to expand
more than the rock below and may separate from the rock body.
- Evident in intrusive igneous rocks.
 - As the outer sheet of an unloaded rock continues to weather, segments of it may slide
off and slough away, further reducing the load on the underlying rock. This successive
removal of these outer rock sheets is known as exfoliation.
- This process eventually let the underlying rocks form domes.

Enchanted Rock, Texas

Insolation Weathering

- This is the repeated expansion and contraction of a rock caused by temperature

change.
- Different coefficients of expansion of the different minerals result in different stresses
which may crack the rock.
Freeze-Thaw Weathering (Frost-wedging)

- In places where the cycle of freezing and thawing temperatures are common, water
repeatedly freezing in small fractures and small cracks in rocks contributes to rock
breakage.

Salt Crystal Growth

= Water containing dissolved salts accumulates in the cracks, fractures, and other void spaces
of rocks. When the water evaporates, the salts stay behind growing crystals that are
capable of wedging pieces of rock apart.

Chemical Weathering
- Chemical weathering decomposes rocks through chemical change.
Ions from a rock are either released into water or recombine with other substances to form new
materials.
●Oxidation
●Hydrolysis
●Carbonation and solution
Oxidation

●Oxygen dissolved in water will oxidize some materials in rocks, usually the ones that are rich in
iron. When iron in these rocks oxidizes, rust usually appears which easily crumbles and
weakens the rock.

Hydrolysis
●Water molecules react with chemical components of rock-forming minerals to create new
compounds of which H⁺ and OH⁻ ions of water are a part.
●Many common minerals are susceptible to hydrolysis, particularly the silicate minerals, to form
clay-like products.

Hydrolysis
Carbonation and Solution

●Solution of CO₂ from the air and H₂O to form H₂CO₃ reacts to, and decomposes carbonate-
rich rocks like limestone. The carbonate rock separates into ions Ca²⁺ and HCO³⁻ and gets
carried away in the water.

Rate of Weathering
The rate of weathering is affected by the following factors:
●Climate (amount of moisture and changing temperature)
○Chemical weathering is particularly apparent in humid areas because of excess moisture.
○↑ temp., ↑ rate of reaction (chemical);
cycle of thawing and freezing (mechanical)
○Air pollution that increases the acidity of moisture further increases the rate of weathering.

Rate of Weathering
●Rock Type - Rock characteristics are a factor. This includes mineral composition and
solubility. One type of rock can be resistant to mechanical weathering but weak against
chemical weathering, and vice-versa.
●Structural Weaknesses - Besides the rock type, other characteristics such as presence of
fractures and cracks affect the rate. Most resistant rocks protrude in cliffs. Cracks influence the
ability of water to seep through the rock.
Mass Wasting
- Also called mass movement, is a collective term for the downslope transport of
surface materials in direct response of gravity. It is the step that follows after
weathering and also a degradation process. The driving force for mass movement is
gravity. Heavier objects have a greater downward pull than lighter objects.
- Other factors that trigger downslope movement are the presence of water, the angle
of the slope, removal of anchoring, and vibration from earthquakes.

Mass Wasting
- There are different types of mass wasting processes. The processes are defined by the
type of materials involved, the kind of motion, and the velocity of movement.
●Slow mass wasting - it is a cumulative and long term kind of movement of the earth. There are
different kinds of slow mass wasting.
●Fast mass wasting - this occurs so quickly- from seconds to days- that people can see the
material move. There are also different kinds.

Slow Mass Wasting

●Creep - this is the slow migration of particles to successively lower elevations. It often
occurs as soil creep, primarily affecting a relatively thin surface layer of weathered rock
particles.
○Creep is so gradual that it is visually imperceptible, yet it is the most widespread and
persistent form of mass wasting.
○Soil creep results from repeated cycles of expansion and contraction related to freezing
and thawing, or wetting and drying, which cause lifting followed by downslope of particles

Slow Mass Wasting-Creep

●Biological activity also contributes to soil creep, also with other kinds of mass wasting. Every
step up, down, or across a steep slope shifts some surface material downhill. Burrowing of
small animals and growing plants also contribute to soil creep.
●Rates of soil creep are greater near the surface (of the soil) than underneath because of
exposure to factors. Layers underneath are not so affected by creep because frictional
resistance to movement increases with depth.
●After surface sediments deposit at the base of the slope, they may eventually be carried away
by one of the geomorphic agents, usually water.

●Solifluction - refers to the slow downslope movement of water-saturated soil and/or

regolith.
●Most common in high-latitude or high-elevation tundra regions that have permafrost which is a
subsurface layer of permanently frozen ground.
Slow Mass Wasting-Solifluction

●The active layer that is above the permafrost freezes in the winter and thaws during summer.
The permafrost prevents the percolation of melted soil water resulting in the active layer
becoming a heavy, water-saturated soil mass that, even on a gentle incline, sags slowly
downslope by the force of gravity until the next surface freeze arrives.
●Evidence of solifluction shows as relatively thin, irregular, tongue-shaped lobes of soil that may
override each other to produce hummocky terrain or low mounds.

Fast Mass Wasting

●Falls - Rock falls are the most common type of fall. Rock falls occur when a piece or a mass of
rocks become dislodged and free-fall along a steep cliff. Debris fall is similar to rock fall, except
that it involves a mixture of soil regolith, vegetation, and rocks. At the base of the cliff is an
accumulation of fallen materials called talus.

Fast Mass Wasting-Falls

●Falling rocks create hazardous conditions to mountainous regions and areas with steep
roadcuts. Travel along roads that have big chances of rock or debris falls are watched
constantly.

Fast Mass Wasting

●Avalanche - although snow avalanches are more commonly known by people, there are such
things as debris avalanches and rock avalanches. Avalanche is a type of mass movement in
which much of the involved material is pulverized--small, powdery fragments--and then
flows rapidly as an airborne density current along the Earth’s surface. They can cause
considerable loss of life and property in mountainous communities if they happen.

●Slides - a cohesive or semi-cohesive unit (magkakasama, dikit-dikit) of Earth material slips

downslope in continuous contact with the land surface.
●Water plays a somewhat greater role in most slides.
●Slides of all kinds threaten the lives and property of people who live in regions with
considerable sloping terrain with characteristics as tilted layers of alternating strong and weak
rocks.

●Rockslides - slides of large sections of bedrock.

○Can happen with other materials such as debris (poorly sorted mixture of gravel and fine
particles) = debris slides; and mud (wet silts and clay) = mudslides.
●Slumps are rotational slides where a thick block of soil moves along a concave, curved
surface.
●Both of this can also be triggered by earthquakes besides heavy rainfall.
●Landslides - general term popularly used to refer to any form of rapid mass movement. In
some cases, Earth scientists apply the term to large, rapid mass wasting events that are difficult
to classify because they contain elements of more than one category of motion or because
multiple types of materials--rocks, debris, earth, soil, vegetation and mud--are involved in a
single massive slide. They are very destructive.

●Flows - masses of water-saturated unconsolidated sediments that move downslope by the

force of gravity. Flows carry water in moving sediments while rivers carry sediments in moving
water.
○Compared with slides, which tend to move as cohesive units, flows involve considerable
churning and mixing of the materials as they move.

●Debris flow - often originates in steep slopes, especially in arid or seasonally dry regions.

●Mudflow - causes hazards in volcanic regions. Steep slopes that are covered in volcanic ash,
when mixed with water due to rains, come downslope as lahar.
Humans and Mass Wasting
●We all know that vegetation roots anchor the earth. Responsible logging, reforestation,
planting more trees on slopes and along river banks and streams help reduce mass
movements.
●Over-steeping slopes through quarrying, open-pit mining, residential and urban dev’t, and
highway constructions highly contributes to mass movement. Proper grading or building
terraces, reinforcing the base of slopes, and reducing the load on slopes avoids this.
●Adding moisture to slopes through lawn watering, pipe leakage, draining swimming pools, and
water reservoir leakages also contributes to mass wasting. Reducing water on a slope makes
the slope stable.

Erosion and Transportation

You can see the relationship of weathering, mass wasting, and erosion. →
Erosion - the process of transporting weathered sediments by agents of erosion and
transported to different places.

Agents of Erosion

1.Water - Running water is the primary agent of erosion on Earth.

A.Splash erosion - raindrops caused tiny particles of soil to be detached and moved out.
B.Sheet erosion - raindrops break apart the soil structure and move downslope as water
flows over land as sheet.
C.Gully erosion - after heavy rain, water flows in narrow channels in eroding gullies into great
depths. (What is a gully?)
D. Valley erosion - continuous water flow alongside land and going downward deepens a
valley.
E. Bank erosion - continuous flow of water wears out stones along the bank of streams and
rivers.
F. Coastline erosion - waves from oceans and seas crash against the shore pounding the
rocks into pebbles and reducing the pebbles to sand. Sand is also removed from the beaches
changing the coastline.
G. Seaside cliff erosion - the battering of the ocean waves erodes seaside cliffs forming
caves in the long run.
2. Glacier
- are thick, large ice masses formed through compaction of snow hundreds of years in the
making. They move very slowly. They can erode land through plucking and abrasion.
Plucking - process wherein fractured bedrocks are incorporated in the ice.
Abrasion - the ice and its load of rock fragments slide over bed rock.

3. Wind

- formed by differences in pressure due to different heating of the atmosphere by the sun.
Wind carries dust, sand, and volcanic ash from one place to another. It wears away soft rocks,
also polishes rocks and cliffs until they are smooth. In deserts, wind carries sand to form sand
dunes.

Transportation
Sediments are transported in these ways:
1.Solution - materials are mixed (as solute) in the water and carried away.
2.Suspension - particles are suspended by a medium (wind, water, or ice)
3.Traction - particles move by rolling, sliding, and shuffling along eroded surface. These
occur in all erosional agents.
4.Saltation - particles move from the surface to the medium in quick repeated cycles.

Deposition and Depositional Landforms

Deposition - is the aggradation or accumulation of weather and sediments to create different

landforms.

Water and Landforms - whenever stream velocity decreases, it deposits sediment it carries.
The material deposit by a stream is called alluvium. Some may be temporary because these
sediments can be carried again and transported to the ocean, but some may be deposited in a
longer life-span (deltas, alluvial fans, flood plains, and levees).

Water and Landforms

●Deltas are formed when a river loses energy as it flows into an area of slow-moving water
such as a lake or the sea. When the river meets the sea, clay particles coagulate and settle in
the seabed (flocculation). The water flows into a delta through distributaries. Distributaries are
part of a stream that leaves the main flow.

●Alluvial fans are formed when a stream reaches a flat area (piedmont) or gently sloping plain.
When the velocity slows, it loses its capacity to carry its sediment material and deposits them at
the junction of the hill and piedmont forming fan-shaped deposits.
●Flood plain is a flat wide expanse of alluvium covering flat areas prone to flooding. A sheet of
silt is deposited after successive floods, increasing the richness of the soil as well as its height.

●Levees are formed by successive floods over the years. When a river overflows, its velocity
decreases, leaving coarse sediments deposited to form a small, natural embankment alongside
the channel. As the water spreads out, fine sediments are deposited over the valley forming a
gentle slope of levees.
Glacier and Landforms
Glaciers, as they move across the land, pick up and transport huge amounts of debris.
Ultimately, these materials are deposited when glaciers melt. In general, all unsorted deposits of
rock formed directly by the ice are called glacial till.

●Moraines - are layers or ridges of till. A long pile of rocky material at the edge of a glacier is
called lateral moraine while at the middle of the glacier is called a medial moraine.

●Esker - is a winding ridge of sand and gravel deposited under a glacier by water melting from
the ice.
●Drumlins - are streamlined asymmetrical mounds or hills composed of tills. They may
occur in clusters called drumlin fields.

●Kames are steep sided hills, Like eskers, they are composed of sand and gravel.

Wind and Landforms

Like water and glaciers, wind is considered as a significant agent in creating landforms.
Accumulations of wind-blown sediments are usually found in dry lands and along sandy
beaches.
●Loess - is a blanket of silt carried by wind in suspension and deposited over broad areas.
Over the years, dust storms deposited this material.

●Dunes - are deposits of coarse materials in the shape of hills or ridges. Dune is a general
term to describe any mound or ridge of wind-blown sand rising to various heights.