Other Erosion Agents

Other 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.

Chemical weathering also causes there to be a breakdown in the structure of the rock and on many occasions produced a new mineral. This event is also known as decomposition and the processes that miners are interested in are oxidation, hydration, carbonation, and solution.

It is not difficult to learn about oxidation, most people already know about it as a matter a fact. However, it is consists of a process in which oxygen becomes mixed with other minerals and this produces a new compound. This can be easily observed by looking at a piece of iron that has rusted after it has been exposed to the weather.

Oxidation can take place due to the air but this will occur a lot quicker when water is involved. The minerals that have high amounts of iron are very susceptible to oxidation.

Hydration is the chemical combination of water with another mineral. However this is not the same as oxidation since oxidation consists of a different kind of development. When it comes to hydration the mineral can become so changed that a new mineral forms such as in the case of anhydrite turning to gypsum. 

Carbon dioxide can be found in the air, water and soils in large quantities. When these are mixed with some minerals it causes their composition to change a lot and in many cases creates new compounds through a process that is known as carbonation. Besides this, the union of water and carbon dioxide makes carbonic acid that is a stronger technique of altering compounds of minerals.