If you mean the weathering of mechanical items such as machinery, then the answer is air and moisture. In dry ambient-constant air, there is no weathering; only the slow drying of grease/oil. Underwater there is no weathering per se but corrosion will occur if air can reach it (drop metal into the ocean and it drags some air down with it). There is surprisingly little 'weathering' of metalic items in deep water (take a look at Titanic after 100 years).
Yes, that type of weathering is worst on structures that are repeatedly into and out of the water, like the water line of a boat or the supports of a pier.
If you mean the mechanical action of weathering, the most damage occurs in weather conditions that include at least close to an average amount of precipitation and temperatures that go repeatedly above and below the freezing temperature of water. While the temperature is above freezing, water from melting snow and fresh precipitation settles in crevices and recesses. When the water freezes, it expands, bending or breaking that which contains it. That's how pot holes form.
Most substances lose volume as they lose heat, due to the slowing of the molecules. Water expands due to the way its molecules line up into crystals as it freezes.
The mechanical weathering involves erosion,wind pressure.
frost wedging ?
What mechanical and chemical weathering have in common is they both break rocks down into smaller and smaller pieces. Eventually the weathered rock will be eroded.
frost wedging ?
Animals cause mechanical weathering in various ways. One of the common ways is by stepping on rocks with their hooves and breaking them down.
Frost wedging & exfoliation are common terms associated with mechanical weathering.
well it is very hard to break up bedrock, but the main process that does is weathering. You have two seperit kinds of weathering. The first one is Chemical Weathering. Chemical weathering is when weathering effects the exterior. two examples are rust and leaching. The second type of weathering is Mechanical Weathering. This effects rocks physically. two examples are abrasion and erosion.SO THE MAIN ANSWER WOULD BE WEATHERING. THE TYPE OF WEATHERING, MECHANICAL WEATHERING, THE PROCESS, ABRASION (well there is more than that but that is the most common situation)
water freezes in a crack in a rock
frost wedging
frost wedging
frost wedging
frost wedging