What to Learn?

  1. Concept of rock and how it relates to the concept of mineral.
  2. Basic properties of the rocks: structure, mineral composition and age.
  3. Sedimentary rocks: formation process, occurrence, strata, major types and main examples.
  4. The formation of coal and petroleum.
  5. Igneous rocks: formation process and its determining factors, occurrence, major types and main examples.
  6. Metamorphic rocks: formation process and its determining factors, occurrence, major types and main examples.
  7. The rocks cycle.
  8. Rocks as resources for human societies.
  9. Major lithological units in Spain.

Basic Information

Rock Grains

Sedimentary rocks can be made up of clasts or detritus (rock grains) weathered from other rocks by river waters, wind, coastal sea waters, glaciers, living beings, etc. This kind of sedimentary rocks are called detrital rocks.

They're classified upon the grains that they are made up of. First up, grains may be all the same size, uniform, as in a sandstone, or different sizes, as in a conglomerate. Secondly, grains may be bigger or smaller. The following table shows roughly how rock grains are classified upon their size:

Diameter
Clay< 0.004 mm
Silt< 0.06 mm
Sand< 2 mm
Gravel< 6 cm
Cobble< 25 cm
Boulders> 25 cm

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About

Science Helpdesk is a website meant to help on developing the scientific contents for the Bilingual Project Integrated Curriculum designed by the Spanish Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia and the British Council.

This website is currently under construction. This means that (a) you could spot some relevant errors in the rendering of the pages - please use the "Contact" form below to report to the webmaster, (b) that it is not feature complete, and (c) and that some sections are a bit short of contents - expect it to be more or less finished by june 2009.

This website has been designed and developed by Arturo J. Murias, currently working in the I.E.S. "Francisco Salinas" (Salamanca, Spain) as a Science teacher in the Bilingual Project.

Copyright of the contents belong to their authors, mentioned where known. Contents created by this website author can be freely distributed as long as the source is mentioned.

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