image: Pore space in weathered rock, exposed here along a roadside in the Sierra Nevada, is a vital reservoir of water for mountain ecosystems. This material, known as "saprolite" lies between topsoil at the surface and unweathered bedrock at depth. This material relates to a paper that appeared in the Sept. 18, 2019, issue of Science Advances, published by AAAS. The paper, by J.L. Hayes at Dickinson College in Carlisle, PA, and colleagues was titled, "Porosity production in weathered rock: Where volumetric strain dominates over chemical mass loss." view more
Credit: Credit: Cliff Riebe