1. Read the text and then answer the question.
8 minutes ONLY
Read the text and then answer the question.
Bellwork
Rolling Along
The Himalaya Mountains are eroding at a rate of about 2.5 millimeters per year. That’s about one tenth as fast as your fingernails grow! But the Himalayas were formed millions of years ago. So imagine the total mass of rock that has fallen down the mountain and that has then been swept out to sea. Over millions of years, the piled weight of eroded particles will squeeze the bits together on the sea floor. New rock will form. Then, ancient bits of the Himalayas will be recycled inside new rock.

2. Chapter 3: Earth’s Structure and Materials
Lesson 6: Rock Cycle

4. Rock Cycle
Forces deep inside Earth and at the surface produce a slow cycle that builds, destroys, and changes the rocks in the crust.
The rock cycle is a series of processes that occur on Earth’s surface and in the crust and mantle that slowly change rocks from one kind to another.

5. The Rock Cycle
There are many pathways by which rocks move through the rock cycle.
Through melting, weathering and erosion, and heat and pressure, the rock cycle constantly changes rocks from one type into another type.

6. Rock Cycle
The changes of the rock cycle are closely related to plate tectonics.
Plate movements help drive the rock cycle by helping to form magma, the source of igneous rocks.
Sedimentary rock can also result from plate movement.
The collision of continental plates can be strong enough to push up a mountain range.

7. The Rock Cycle Surface and Subsurface Events: the Tibetan Plateau
Processes on and underneath Earth’s surface drive the rock cycle in mountains on the Tibetan Plateau.

8. Rock Cycle
Then, weathering and erosion begin. The mountains are worn away. This process leads to the formation of sedimentary rock. A collision between continental plates can push rocks down deep beneath the surface. Here, heat and pressure could change the rocks to metamorphic rock.
Constructive and destructive forces build up and destroy Earth’s landmasses. But as the rock in Earth’s crust moves through the rock cycle, material is not lost or gained.

9. Rock Cycle
For example, the forces of mountain building slowly push granite upward. Over millions of years, weathering and erosion begin to wear away the granite to form sand. Streams carry the sand to the ocean. Layers of sediment pile up on the ocean floor.
Calcite dissolved in the ocean water may cement the particles together, and sandstone forms. Eventually pressure may compact the sandstone particles further. Silica will replace the calcite as the cement holding the rock together. The rock’s texture will change, and the metamorphic rock quartzite will form.

10. The Rock Cycle Patterns in the Rock Cycle: Surface Events
All of the paths of the rock cycle result from only a few surface and subsurface processes.
What words belong in the empty boxes in the graphic organizer?
Magma/Sediment

11. What type of rock forms at point A?
The Rock Cycle
The Rock Cycle and Plate Tectonics
New rock forms on the ocean floor of the Atlantic Ocean, forming a ridge. Here, two plates move apart.
What type of rock forms at point A?