Download The Rock Cycle

The Rock Cycle
Narrative Input
Hi My name is Rocky and I have decided to share the story of my life. I have to include
my best friend Chip because we have always been together. I think I will call my story
The Rock Cycle because my friend Chip and I are both rocks. My life began inside the
Mantle. Chip and I were melted rock called Magma.
Picture 1 (earth’s core)
Our life was pretty easy. Most of the time convection currents caused us to float down
toward the outer core, then float up to push against the crust and back down again. We
moved in circles, over and over again. Sometimes it was a little too hot down by the
outer core, but then we would float up to the crust, which was cooler. We were worry-free
as we swam the currents.
Picture 2 (convection currents)
This was our life for almost a million years. Then one day we noticed something was
going on at the part of the crust we always pushed up against. The crust seemed to be
getting weaker. We knew something big was about to happen. Can you guess what it
was?
Picture 3 (mantle & crust)
If you guessed a volcanic eruption, you were right. One day we just exploded onto the
crust. It was amazing. Chip and I were no longer magma. We had become lava that was
flowing onto continental crust. When we finally cooled off enough we stopped flowing,
and we saw things we had never seen before. There were beautiful flowers, trees, blue
skies and all kinds of animals. For some reason, they were all running from us and
seemed to be upset about something.
Picture 4 (lava)
Pretty soon something else started happen. When I looked at Chip, he didn’t look quite
right and I felt a little strange myself. We were changing into hard rocks. When magma
erupts onto the rust of the earth, it cools and becomes igneous rock. Chip and I were
now igneous rocks. We were very happy because on the crust we had so much more to
look at than we did in the mantle.
Picture 5 (granite, an Igneous Rock)
What happened next was worse than you could image. Chip and I were constantly being
hit by wind and rain. That wasn’t the horrible part. Over a long period of time, little pieces
of us began to break off. The wind and rain would carry our pieces to a nearby river,
which flowed into the sea. Before long Chip and I were little pieces or rock mixed with
sand and shells. Chip and I were sediment.
Picture 6 (layer of earth & rock)
Chip and I were scattered on the bottom of the ocean. We had broken up into little chips
of rock and were mixed with dust and sand. We didn’t like being sediment. More
sediment kept piling on top of us, squeezing and cementing us together. The pressure
became intense. Over many, many years we began to form into a sedimentary rock.
Picture 7 (Shale, a Sedimentary Rock)
The earth’s crust, both oceanic and continental is broken into chunks or pieces called
plates. The plate Chip and I were part of was colliding with another plate. Our plate was
being pulled down under the other plate. Guess where we were headed? Down towards
the mantle. We were getting deep enough into the earth’s crust that we could feel the
heat.
Picture 8 (earth’s crust)
As we continued to collide with the other plate, we kept sinking deeper toward the
mantle. As the heat and pressure became intense, I could feel that I was changing. We
were becoming metamorphic rocks. I am now one of the most beautiful ever made. I am
a marble rock, a type of metamorphic rock, and may someday become part of a famous
sculpture.
Picture 9 (Marble, a type of Metamorphic rock)
Chip and I are not together right now. As our plate was sinking toward the mantle, Chip
got too hot and melted. He is now back in the mantle and is magma once again. Since
Chip began in the mantle and has now returned to the mantle, he has completed the
rock cycle.
Picture 10 (earth’s core)