Weathering - interrelation of chemical and physical weathering

Anne Carey, The Ohio State University

This activity is part of the On the Cutting Edge Peer Reviewed Teaching Activities collection. (view details)

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Scientific Accuracy
Alignment of Learning Goals, Activities, and Assessments
Pedagogic Effectiveness
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Initial Publication Date: June 9, 2014 | Reviewed: January 17, 2015 (see revision history: 2 events)

Summary

Weathering/Soils | College Lower (13-14), College Upper (15-16)

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Context

Audience

This is an undergraduate majors course in geomorphology typically taken by sophomores and juniors majoring in Earth Science or Physical Geography.

Skills and concepts that students must have mastered

Topics covered in lecture before this lab include an overview of climate and geomorphology, tectonic geomorphology, geologic time and age dating, and weathering and soils. The labs before this one include one reviewing of Earth materials and another on maps and satellite imagery with ENVI software which intrudes DTMs, LandSat images,

How the activity is situated in the course

This is a lab exercise conducted early in the semester.

Goals

Content/concepts goals for this activity

Goals for this lab include that students develop an understanding of the relationship between chemical and physical weathering and the importance of other environmental factors (e.g., temperature and pH) in chemical weathering. Students later determine the physical erosion rate of a watershed using suspended sediment data. The final activity is to use actual field data from some rapidly denuding watersheds to determine chemical and physical erosion rates.