Minerals and the Rock Cycle - Essay Example

The result is volcanic rocks, which are of fine grains (Mattern, 2005). On the earth's surface, igneous rocks undergo the process of weathering since their components do not stabilize at the surface conditions. Moving water and wind are the main factors of weathering.

The rocks are broken down into pieces or sediments and carried away mixing up with other components. After quite a long duration of time, the sediments are finally glued together to form sedimentary rocks (Mattern, 2005). Exposing the rocks to high temperatures and pressure on the earth's surface causes a physical change in them. The high temperature cause the hardening of large masses of rocks called metamorphic rocks. The metamorphic rocks are responsible for forming Mountains. Both the metamorphic and sedimentary rocks can melt again to form magma under high temperatures.

Weathering occurs again on metamorphic rocks, resulting in the formation of sedimentary rocks. The rock cycle starts over continuously (Mattern, 2005).