Geology Please answer the entire prompt not just process im confused. Imagine th

Question

Geology

Please answer the entire prompt not just process im confused.

Imagine that a specimen has gone through the following transitions along the timeline given:

5 million years ago: a sandy beach

3 million years ago: a piece of sandstone

1.5 million years ago: a piece of quartzite

Today: a piece of granite

Describe the processes that would have occurred to create each of the different specimens above. How would they have transitioned from one type to the next? What might become of this sample in the future? What function could each of these types of sediment or rocks have for humans? Be sure to use the information you have learned about plate tectonics, the rock cycle, use of minerals and rocks as resources, and the formation of minerals and the three major rock types.

Explanation / Answer

The composition of a specific sample on a sandy beach usually that it is in such tectonic condition condition where the rivers which has an non-orogenic origin. If the would have been in a muddy beach, then it could be said that the rivers are generally of the orogenic origin. This condition prevailed 5 million years ago in a certain specimen.

After about 2 million years, it is said that the specimen got converted to sandstone. Now this conversion usually takes place by the help of a process called lithification and cementation or matrix formation. Although the matrix content in typical sandstone is less than 15% of the total clasts. One of the very determining processes by which this can take place is the process of lithification where the individual sand grains under some sort of external force is brought into such kind of a condition where the individual grains are glued together and the resultant is a lithified rock, Sandstone.

After this process of sedimentation, a general time span of 1.5 million years, a mild change in the pressure and temperature causes the rock to change into its metamorphic equivalent usually a quartzite where the sandstone is metamorphosed due to the change in the habitat conditions(usually diagenesis).

It is said that the present day specimen of the rock is a granite which is an plutonic equivalent of Rhyolite. The compostion of this rock is generally acidic that is silica oversaturated conditions. And moreover, for a metamorphosed rock to get converted into an plutonic igneous rock, the main process is by melting after being subjected to a very high temperature and pressure at the specific depth inside the earth's crust.

This rock can be of a different state in the future depending upon the conditions at which it has been exposed to. For example if has been subjected to a condition where the grains have recrystallised, then it might form a metamorphic rock. While if it undergoes very intense weathering and erosion, it might go into a sedimentary form.

The presence of such original remains usually called relict, is generally found out by the determination of the protolith of the rock present. Therefore, depending upon the conditions at which the rock has been exposed to, it can take different forms that is igneous, sedimentary or metamorphic.

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