A Dummy's Version of the Rock Cycle

The rock cycle

In olden days, every "contributor" to the former Demand Media sites (eHow.com, SFGate.com, etc.) had to cobble together a short biography explaining their qualifications. That's how we know that the person writing utter rubbish about particle physics is the proud owner of an English BA or that the freelancer explaining how to build a deck is a college student studying journalism. We love those bios... we especially like the grandiose ones like that of Athena Hessong, who claimed she "draws upon experience and knowledge gained from teaching all high-school subjects for seven years." Yeah, sure: except that her Sciencing.com post "Rock Cycle Process"¹ suggests Athena didn't dabble much in Earth Sciences...

...nor did Hessong study the subject to get her history BA. We admit that the "question" was vague, but that didn't give Athena the necessary latitude to just make it up as she went along. That's probably not the case – Hessong picked some (fairly) useful references; it's just that she either didn't understand what they said or couldn't reword them accurately. In any case, she... missed a few points. Take, for instance,

1. "Cooling of either magma or lava crystallizes the minerals inside, forming igneous rocks."
2. "Common extrusive igneous rocks include obsidian and basalt."
3. "...weathering... breaks the rock down into small particles. These create sediment and soil, more commonly known as dirt. When water combines with the dirt, it becomes mud. These sediments forms sedimentary rocks."
4. "Sedimentary rocks... come from the particles resulting from weathering of igneous, metamorphic and other sedimentary rocks. These particles are known as clasts."
5. "Metamorphic rocks change igneous, sedimentary or other metamorphic rocks through intense pressure from the weight of the Earth's crust on top of the rocks. This pressure generates heat..."
6. "Geologic movements of the tectonic plates in the crust push all types of rocks beneath the surface. This movement also creates heat."

After a few minutes of meditation (aka "centering"), our staff geologist issued these corrections:

1. There are no "minerals inside" magma. Crystallization of the magma creates minerals.
2. Obsidian is not "common." Rhyolite or andesite would have been a better example.
3. Scientists don't use the word "dirt." That, and "mud" is a size description, not a compositional description – clay-size particles, to be more precise.
4. Hessong completely ignores chemical and biochemical sedimentary rocks – limestone, in other words – which are not made of clasts at all.
5. The weight of the crust isn't responsible for the heat needed for metamorphism; heat results from the high temperature of the core.
6. See previous comment, re: heat...

Those six statements needing correction are just the tip of Hessong's iceberg of misconception, misstatement, and misinformation. Still, Athena continued to post bogus scientific and technical information to eHow and its sister sites. With this and thousands of other Dumbass of the Day-worthy pages, is it any wonder we've termed the site the mother lode of misinformation? Feh.

¹ The original has been rewritten by Leaf Group, but Hessong's version can still be accessed using the Wayback machine at archive.org. Its URL was   sciencing.com/rock-cycle-process-6171750.html

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