How Porosity Increases During Incipient Weathering of Crystalline Silicate Rocks

Weathering of bedrock to produce porous regolith, the precursor to biologically active soil and soluble mineral nutrients, creates the life-supporting matrix upon which Earth’s Critical Zone—the thin surface layer where rock meets life—develops (Ollier 1985; Graham et al. 1994; Taylor and Eggleston 2001). Water and nutrients locked up in low porosity bedrock are biologically inaccessible until weathering helps transform the inert rock into a rich habitat for biological activity. Weathering increases the water-holding capacity and nutrient accessibility of rock and regolith by increasing porosity and mineral surface area, affecting the particle-size distribution, and enhancing ecosystem diversity (Cousin et al. 2003; Certini et al. 2004; Zanner and Graham 2005). Especially in areas where soils are thin and climate is dry, the water stored in weathered rock is essential to ecosystem productivity and survival (Sternberg et al. 1996; Zwieniecki and Newton 1996; Hubbert et al. 2001; Witty et al. 2003). Removal of soluble material during weathering decreases the concentrations of major elements such as Ca, Na, and Mg and the overall mass of the solid, decreasing the bulk density and increasing porosity. These chemical and physical changes result in decreased uniaxial compressive strength and elastic moduli of the rock and increased infiltration of water through the weathered rock (Tugrul 2004). Porosity in intact bedrock is comprised of inter- and intra-granular pores developed during (re-) crystallization in igneous and metamorphic rocks or diagenesis in sedimentary rocks. As we conceptualize it, the conversion of low-permeability bedrock to regolith generally begins due to the transport of meteoric water into protolith through the large-scale fractures that are present as a result of regional tectonic factors or exhumation (Wyrick and Borchers 1981; Molnar et al. 2007). In zones near the fractures, water can infiltrate into the low-porosity rock …