Slide 19 of 30
Notes:
At left is a Hawaiian volcano, from which the lava is quite fluid. Such volcanoes tend to have small frequent eruptions, which build gently sloping cones. They are typical of oceanic environments distant from regions where the ocean floor is being subducted beneath an adjacent plate.
Weathering is the process of mechanical fracture and chemical decomposition of rock minerals when they are exposed to the atmosphere or the acid environment in soils. Erosion by down slope transport and by partial solution in rain water slowly exposes more crustal rock and renews the weathering process.