🪨 Journey of a Pebble: The Rock Cycle Adventure

My name is Pip the Pebble, and I didn't always look like this—round, smooth, and small enough to skip across a pond.

No, no… I was born in fire.

Millions of years ago, I lived deep beneath the Earth where it was hotter than a dragon's breath. Down there, rocks don't stay solid—they melt into glowing magma, bubbling like a giant pot of soup.

Then one day… BOOM!

A volcano erupted, blasting magma into the air. It cooled quickly and hardened into solid rock. That's when I was born as a big chunk of igneous rock called basalt.

I was strong. I was black and shiny. I was ready for adventure.

I just didn't know the Earth had much bigger plans for me.

Magma chamber deep beneath Earth's surface, forming new igneous rock

Thousands of years passed.

I sat proudly on the side of an ancient cliff… until one cold night, water seeped into tiny cracks inside me.

Then winter came. The water froze, expanded, and—

CRAAAAACK!

A giant piece of me broke off. Wind, rain, and ice chipped away at me bit by bit. This is called weathering—nature's way of turning big rocks into little pieces.

Soon, I tumbled down the cliff and landed next to a river, where I met other pebbles.

"Welcome to the club!" one said. "We're all pieces of something bigger."

Large basalt rock cracking with frost, tiny pebble pieces falling

One day, the river flooded and carried us away.

We bounced along the bottom, tumbling, rolling, bumping, and smoothing each other like we were in a giant washing machine.

"That's erosion!" shouted a pebble named Grit. "It's how we travel!"

The river carried us for miles. We became smaller, rounder, and softer. Water polished us until we gleamed.

When the river slowed down, it dropped us at its mouth—right into the ocean.

Rounded stones tumbling through rushing river water, erosion in action

For hundreds of years, more sand, mud, shells, and broken bits of rock piled on top of us.

The weight pressed down… And down… And DOWN.

We were squished together so tightly that the grains sticking beside me became my new neighbors forever.

Congratulations to me! I was no longer basalt. I had become a sedimentary rock called sandstone.

Life was calm. But calm never lasts long in the rock cycle.

Sand and shells pressed together in horizontal layers forming sedimentary rock

The Earth's crust is always moving—slowly, silently, like a giant puzzle shifting its pieces.

One day, the land above us was pushed down deep into the Earth by plate tectonics.

As I sank, the temperature rose. Then the pressure. Then both together.

My sandstone grains welded tight. My color changed. My crystals rearranged like a puzzle being solved by heat itself.

I had become metamorphic—a new rock called quartzite. Stronger, brighter, and sparkling like glass.

Rock glowing under intense heat and pressure deep inside Earth

As millions more years passed, the plates shifted again.

I sank deeper… And deeper… Until I melted completely.

Goodbye, Pip the Pebble. Hello, Pip the magma droplet once again!

In the rock cycle, endings are just new beginnings.

Someday, I'll cool into igneous rock again… Weather away into sediment… Get squished into sedimentary rock… And transform into metamorphic rock once more.

That's the rock cycle— A story that never ends, only changes.

The complete rock cycle: magma → igneous → sediment → sedimentary → metamorphic → back to magma