Agents of Erosion

Some agents of erosion also include animals and plants as these cause disintegration of rocks in a lot of different ways. Remember that trees and bushes, as well as little plants in many occasions grow in little crevices in rocks and the roots produce force that spreads and makes the crevices wider and this allows frost pockets to form and in some cases it even pushes the surface of the rock apart causing it to expose more surface to agents that are erosional. There are also burrowing agents that include animals such as rodents as well as ants and human beings as well, take rock particles to the surface and they expose them to disintegration too. In the past there have been miners that have been able to find a good amount of gold by looking at the burrows of rodents and the materials they show. There are also many states in which hydraulicking (in the 1800’s) caused there to be a lot of Tertiary deposits that have had gold in them for a number of years. Keep in mind that the physical effects of weathering that have been mentioned though only cause smaller pieces of the rock and exposes them to other forces of nature that can then carry them and change them as well.