ASBOG Practice Exam 2025 – Comprehensive All-in-One Guide to Ace Your Geology Licensure!

The process of weathering and erosion is primarily responsible for landform changes over extended time periods because it involves the breakdown of rocks and the movement of sediments. Weathering encompasses both mechanical and chemical processes that gradually wear down rock surfaces, while erosion focuses on the transportation of these weathered materials by agents like water, wind, and ice.

Over long timescales, weathering and erosion can significantly alter the landscape, creating features such as valleys, canyons, and hills. For instance, rivers can sculpt canyons through erosion. Continual weathering weakens rock structures, making them more susceptible to being carried away by moving water or wind.

While biological activity, hydraulic action, and plate tectonics also contribute to landform changes, they do so in different contexts or on different timescales. Biological activity can create subtle modifications through plant roots acting on rocks, while hydraulic action is more about the immediate impact of water in motion rather than prolonged change. Plate tectonics, on the other hand, affects the Earth's structure on a grand scale but operates on a different order of time compared to the gradual processes of weathering and erosion that continuously reshape the landscape over millennia.