I’m going to let you read this instead of reading it out loud. It works better that way. This

also means that I need to guess on the timing, so

please tell me if I’m going too fast. Of course, I’m

proceeding on the assumption that you can all read. If you can’t, we have a

problem.

The Rock Cycle

By Taya Lorenz

I started out as an igneous rock. I cooled from the lava that originally made up Earth’s surface. Before I was lava, I was simply millions of tiny particles floating in space.

Igneous Rock

Lava flowed over me once I cooled, and I sank down. The lava solidified on top of me, and it’s weight pressing down on me distorted my surface and the grains and particles inside of me. I was then pushed to the surface by a current of lava on it’s way to form a volcano.

Metamorphic Rock

On the surface, powerful winds blew and a stream formed by me. It wore me away, and I reverted back to being the particles I was in space. I was carried along with the stream, which eventually joined a river, which emptied out into the ocean, depositing me at the bottom in the process. I was compacted and cemented together, along with the parts of hundreds of other rocks.

Sedimentary Rock

The waves of the ocean slowly eroded me away, until I was small enough to be taken out with the waves. I fell into a deep-ocean trench, where the pressure and heat resulting from the proximity to Earth’s core changed my particles into something completely different.

Metamorphic Rock

I was being washed away by the waves. I could feel the sand grating against me. You humans think that we can’t feel anything, but we can. We just don’t show it like you do. I was again small enough to be swept away by the waves, and I was deposited in a deeper part of the ocean, where the immense pressure of two miles of water above me pressed me in with other particles. I was back to being made up of hundreds of different rocks.

Sedimentary Rock

I was already deep in the ocean, but I was sucked in deeper, and melted down into magma yet again. This is how you would see me now- somewhere in a boiling vat of molten rock, soon to be igneous.

Igneous Rock

Huge convection currents of magma dragged me downwards, until the extreme heat finally melted me down into molten rock. I churned around in the mantle for a while, until I was caught up in a passing bubble of magma on its way to the surface. It pushed its way out of a volcano, which was on an island that it had probably made for itself. The bubble was caught for a short while, until the immense pressure building behind us broke through. We erupted to the surface, and I landed near the ocean and cooled instantly.

Igneous Rock

So there you have it. My life. A perpetual cycle, a never-ending movement through Earth’s systems.

You would know it as the rock cycle.

To Conclude…

You didn’t REALLY think I was just going to let you leave, did you?

The answer is no, by the way.

First, I need to ask some questions!

And Now to Review

Do I have to go through the cycle in a certain order?

Question One

Absolutely not. Weren’t you paying attention? I go wherever the heck Earth wants me to go, and it tends to choose randomly.

Answer One

How do I become igneous?

Question Two

I REALLY hope you knew this one. I certainly went through it often enough. Usually, it begins with me being flung to the bottom of the ocean and swallowed by molten rock, then erupting out of a volcano of some sort and cooling.

Answer Two

This is the last and most important question.

DID YOU LIKE IT?!?!?!

Question Three

There is one answer to this and one answer only.

You’d better have said YES!!! Really

loudly or I will hunt you down. It does count if you said it in your head. I understand. *sniff sniff*

Answer Three