WEATHERING

Weathering is a set of physical, chemical and biological processes that alter the physical and chemical state of rocks and soil at or near the earth's surface. Rock and soil is altered physically by disintegrating and chemically by decomposing. Nearly all weathering involves water, mostly directly: frost shattering, wetting and drying, salt weathering, and all chemical weathering is in solution.  That is, weathering is climatically driven and thus the term weathering. Because weather and climate occur at the earth's surface, the intensity of weathering decreases with depth and most of it occur within less than a metre of the surface of soil and rock.