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Weathering

Rock to regolith

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The amount of pore space in most unweathered granite is too small to support a plant-based ecosystem. But porosity grows as intact rock interacts with surface waters beneath the soil.

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Figure 1: Surface waters interact with underlying bedrock, causing it to crumble into disaggregated mineral grains.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Susan L. Brantley is in Pennsylvania State University, 2217 Earth and Environmental Systems Institute, University Park, PA 16802, USA. brantley@eesi.psu.edu,

    Susan L. Brantley

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  1. Susan L. Brantley
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Brantley, S. Rock to regolith. Nature Geosci 3, 305–306 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1038/ngeo858

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