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Rock Deformation, Part 2

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Rock Deformation, Part 2
Reading Level

	edHelper's suggested reading level:	grades 7 to 8
	Flesch-Kincaid grade level:	5.87

Vocabulary

	challenging words:		anticline, anticlines, bowl-shaped, ductile, footwall, monocline, nonvertical, sharp-pointed, step-like, syncline, divergent, sedimentary, geologists, strike-slip, symmetrical, relation
	content words:		Rock Deformation, Great Rift Valley, East Africa, San Andreas Fault

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Rock Deformation, Part 2 By Trista L. Pollard

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¹     Everyday the rocks on our planet go through stress, strain, and deformation. As you read in Rock Deformation, Part 1, there are many factors that affect how rocks respond to stress. Rocks that go through ductile strain often form folds. Folds are bent rock layers that form when compression occurs. There may be cracks near the fold. However, the rock layers tend to be intact and free from cracks.
 
²     Rock folds have different identifiable features. The limbs are the sloping sides of the fold. These limbs meet at the hinge or the bend in the rock layers. When you think of rock folds, you probably imagine a perfect upside down U. If this is so, then the fold would be sliced by a plane into two symmetrical halves. If the fold can be cut by this axial plane, then it is symmetrical. As with nature and rocks, folds are rarely symmetrical.
 
³     Folds usually bend vertically. However, there are also other shapes for folds. Overturned folds look as if they are lying on their sides. Geologists have observed tight folds, open folds, folds with smooth bends, and folds with sharp-pointed bends. It is the unique stresses that rock goes through that determine the fold that will be formed.

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