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Date
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The Rock Cycle Review Worksheet
Understanding Main Ideas: Use these terms to fill in the blanks in the figure below:
metamorphic rock, sedimentary rock, magma and lava, igneous rock, sediment.
Answer the following questions on a separate sheet of paper.
6. Describe how the granite of a mountain could change first into sandstone and then into quartzite.
7. Describe how a collision between continental plates can result in the formation of metamorphic rock.
Building Vocabulary write a definition for the term below.
8. rock cycle
.
Fill in the blank using the following words to complete each statement:
deposition, melting, magma, heat, cycle
1. The series of processes that that slowly change Earth’s rocks from one kind to another is called the rock
_______________.
2. Plate movements help drive the rock cycle by helping to form _______________, the source of igneous
rocks.
3. Deep beneath the surface, _______________ and pressure can change sedimentary rock to
metamorphic rock.
4. Through the process of _______________, metamorphic rock can become magma.
5. Sediment piles up on the ocean floor through the process of _______________.
If the statement is true, write true. If the statement is false, change the underlined word
or words to make the statement true.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
_______________ The process that breaks down granite into sediment is deposition.
_______________ There are many pathways by which rocks move through the rock cycle.
_______________ The processes of the rock cycle form a pattern of pathways.
_______________ Surface events not subsurface events change rocks from one kind to another.
_______________ The collision of continental plates can push up a mountain range, after which
weathering and erosion begin.
The Rock Cycle
Answer Key
1. Each small block in the multicolor cube
represents a grain, a particle of a mineral or of
another rock.
2. The rock has an easily visible grain. Individual
grains (the sides of the small blocks seen on
the cube’s faces) are large, and their shape is
regular.
7. A collision between continental plates can push
rocks down deep beneath the surface. Here,
heat and pressure could change the rocks to
metamorphic rock.
8. The rock cycle is a series of processes that occur
on Earth’s surface and in the crust and mantle
that slowly change rocks from one kind to
another.
3. The rock is coarse-grained.
4. There is no pattern to the placement of the
different grains. They do not form layers,
bands of color, or swirling patterns.
1. Only igneous rocks are involved in that
pathway.
2. Students’ flowcharts should show igneous rock
Through surface events such as deposition,
weathering, and erosion, sedimentary rocks are
formed from other types of rocks. Subsurface
events such as melting, earthquakes, volcanic
activity, heat, and pressure change rocks from one
type to another. All of these changes are a part of
the rock cycle.
forming at the mid-ocean ridge, moving across
the ocean floor, being subducted at a deepocean trench, melting into mantle material, and
becoming igneous rock again.
3. Metamorphic rock changes into sedimentary
rock, which changes into metamorphic rock
again.
4. Students’ flowcharts should show the formation
of metamorphic rock, the erosion of that rock,
the formation of sedimentary rock, and the
change to metamorphic rock.
1. igneous rock
2. sediment
5. Answers will vary. Students should describe the
processes that form the three major groups of
rocks.
3. sedimentary rock
4. metamorphic rock
5. magma and lava
6. As the forces of mountain building slowly
push the granite upward, weathering and
erosion wear away the granite to form sand.
Streams carry the sand to the ocean where
layers of sediment pile up on the ocean floor.
The sediments get compacted and cemented
together to form sandstone. If pressure
compacts the sandstone particles further and
silica replaces the calcite holding the rock
together, quartzite will form.
1. cycle
2. magma
3. heat
4. melting
5. deposition
6. weathering
7. true
8. true
9. and
10. true