geological cycle

British  

noun

1. Also called: rock cycle.  the series of events in which a rock of one type is converted to one or more other types and then back to the original type

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geological cycle Cultural  

1. The continuous process in which hot, molten material coming to the surface of the Earth from the interior forms igneous rocks, which are then broken down by weathering to create soil and sedimentary rocks. These sedimentary rocks can be lifted up by the motion associated with plate tectonics, in which case they are again weathered and washed down to the sea. Alternatively, they can be buried deep within the Earth, changed into metamorphic rocks, and brought to the surface of the Earth, or buried so deeply that they are melted and become part of the magma from which igneous rocks are formed.

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Example Sentences

In total, more than 300 million tonnes of plastic is manufactured every year, states the paper, The Geological Cycle of Plastics and Their Use as a Stratigraphic Indicator of the Anthropocene.

From The Guardian

Species susceptible of modification may be greatly altered in a few generations.—It cannot be objected, that it is out of our power to go on varying the circumstances in the same manner as might happen in the natural course of events during some great geological cycle.

From Project Gutenberg

As astronomers are obliged to take the diameter of the earth's orbit as the unit of space, so Darwinians are obliged to take a geological cycle as their unit of duration.

From Project Gutenberg