--- title: Rocks, minerals and fossils — a lesson of Mova's school · trees and pragmatics description: «Rocks, minerals and fossils», a lesson of the world course of Mova's primary school, sentence by sentence with dependency trees and pragmatics. It begins: Rocks are made of minerals, natural solid materials each built from the same tiny particles arranged in a regular pattern; granite, for example, --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/61-rocks-minerals-fossils/) [home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/) / [World](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/) / Rocks, minerals and fossils # Rocks, minerals and fossils Lesson 61 of the world course of Mova's primary school: 18 sentences, each with its syntax tree and pragmatics. The lessons are written for Mova, and their agreed trees are part of Mova corpus 0.4 (CC BY-SA 4.0). How Mova does on its tests: [the lesson at school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/school-run/world/61-rocks-minerals-fossils/). - [0](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/61-rocks-minerals-fossils/0/) — Rocks are made of minerals, natural solid materials each built from the same tiny particles arranged in a regular pattern; granite, for example, is a mix of grains of quartz, feldspar and mica that you can see with a magnifying glass. - [1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/61-rocks-minerals-fossils/1/) — Rocks form in three main ways. - [3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/61-rocks-minerals-fossils/3/) — Rocks are slowly recycled in the rock cycle: they are broken by weathering, carried away as sand and mud, laid down in layers, buried, heated, and sometimes melted and pushed up again, over millions of years. - [4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/61-rocks-minerals-fossils/4/) — A fossil is the remains or trace of a living thing from long ago kept in rock. - [5](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/61-rocks-minerals-fossils/5/) — Most fossils form when a dead plant or animal is quickly buried in mud or sand; its hard parts are slowly replaced by minerals and turn to stone, so fossils are found mostly in sedimentary rock. - [6](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/61-rocks-minerals-fossils/6/) — For example, a footprint left by a dinosaur in soft mud, filled with sand and hardened, can still be seen today, more than 66 million years later. - [7](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/61-rocks-minerals-fossils/7/) — Rocks are made of one or more minerals. - [9](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/61-rocks-minerals-fossils/9/) — Sedimentary rock forms from layers of sand, mud or shells pressed together; sandstone, limestone and chalk are sedimentary rocks. - [10](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/61-rocks-minerals-fossils/10/) — Metamorphic rock forms when rock is changed by great heat and pressure without melting; marble is limestone changed in this way. - [11](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/61-rocks-minerals-fossils/11/) — Lava that cools quickly makes rock with tiny crystals or none, and magma that cools slowly underground makes big crystals. - [12](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/61-rocks-minerals-fossils/12/) — Lava full of gas bubbles can cool quickly into rock with many small holes, such as pumice. - [13](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/61-rocks-minerals-fossils/13/) — In layers of sedimentary rock that have not been turned over, the lower layers are usually older than the upper ones. - [14](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/61-rocks-minerals-fossils/14/) — A fossil is the remains or trace of a living thing from long ago preserved in rock. - [15](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/61-rocks-minerals-fossils/15/) — Fossils are found mostly in sedimentary rock, because living things are buried in mud and sand. - [16](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/61-rocks-minerals-fossils/16/) — Soft body parts usually rot away before they can be buried, so fossils of soft animals are rare. - [17](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/61-rocks-minerals-fossils/17/) — Hardness of minerals is compared by scratching: a harder mineral scratches a softer one; diamond is the hardest natural mineral. - [18](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/61-rocks-minerals-fossils/18/) — Chalk is made mostly of the tiny shells of sea creatures that lived millions of years ago. - [19](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/61-rocks-minerals-fossils/19/) — Coal formed from plants of ancient swamps buried and pressed for millions of years. - ← previous: [Thinking it through — forces, heat, light and energy](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/60-reasoning-energy-technology/) - next →: [Volcanoes and earthquakes up close](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/62-volcanoes-and-earthquakes/) - ↑ back to [World](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/)