rock cycle
Americannoun
noun
Etymology
Origin of rock cycle
First recorded in 1895–1900
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
It promised to explain how mountains form and fall, the hydrologic cycle, soil formation and erosion, minerals, the rock cycle, and why ocean sediments end up in weird places like the top of mountains.
From Scientific American ● Sep. 21, 2019
The rock cycle shows that both igneous and sedimentary rocks can become metamorphic rocks.
From Textbooks ● Jan. 1, 2017
This evidence does not necessarily mark the starting point of plate tectonics; remnants of earlier tectonic activity could have been erased by the rock cycle.
From Textbooks ● Jan. 1, 2017
Metamorphic rocks, meta- meaning change and –morphos meaning form, is one of the three rock categories in the rock cycle.
From Textbooks ● Jan. 1, 2017
The rock cycle, as we now know, is driven by plate tectonics, with sedimentary material vanishing into subduction zones.
From Scientific American ● Oct. 20, 2013
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
