Weathering vs Erosion

All week we have been studying weathering and erosion. While these two often go together, they are still two different processes. It is important to understand the differences between them.

Weathering is the breaking down of rock and mineral.

Erosion then carries away those broken down pieces of rock and mineral. Erosion can happen either by wind, rain, glaciers, or even because of gravity.

Here is one picture from an experiment this week.

The picture on the left is our stream table after a typical rain storm. The stream has not changed much, but some sand has eroded away.

The picture on the right is what would happen after a flood. The stream has widened and much of the sand has begun to erode away.

We learned that flooding definitely speeds up the erosion process and erodes more materials away.

Ask your child what happened when we changed the slope of our stream table and which caused the sand to erode more!