The rock cycle is a good conceptual model for understanding the internal and external processes that create, alter, and recycle Earth materials that make up our planet's surface.

1)What are these processes and materials, and how do they interact to produce the major types of rocks?

2)How could human activities affect parts of the rock cycle and vice versa?

there are three types of rocks

1. Magmatic or igneous rocks
2. Sedimentary rocks
3.  Metamorphic rocks

Step-by-step explanation

• What are these processes and materials, and how do they interact to produce the main types of rocks?

To explain in a simple way it can be said that magma, for example, which forms at a great depth below the Earth's surface, cools and solidifies (crystallization), either below the Earth's surface or in the surface, originating igneous rocks. When igneous rocks emerge on the surface they will undergo a sedimentary process, giving rise to a sedimentary rock; If this sedimentary rock is also deeply buried and undergoes metamorphic processes, the rock will react to the changing environment and become metamorphic. Finally, when the latter is exposed to additional pressure changes or even higher temperatures, it will melt, creating a magma that will again end up crystallizing in igneous rocks. It should be said that something common to all these changes is that they require large amounts of time to make.

The above is a basic cycle but it is not the only one possible. Igneous rocks are an example of this, since instead of being exposed on the earth's surface, they can remain deeply buried, being subjected to great compression forces and high temperatures, transforming directly into metamorphic rocks. Metamorphic and sedimentary rocks, as well as sediments, do not always remain buried since the upper layers can be removed, leaving them exposed, when this occurs, the materials become weathered or eroded and become new raw material for sedimentary rocks. Thus, successively, the rocks interact with each other, passing from one type to another according to the factors that affect them.

• How could human activities affect parts of the rock cycle and vice versa?
  changes caused by humans result in an increase of carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane (CH4) in the atmosphere. Humans have used rocks as raw material since their appearance as a species, first as a tool, later to build their houses and more recently as a source of energy and indistrially these processes accelerate the weathering and transformation of rock.The biggest source of this change is produced by the consumption of fossil fuels, but other actions such as deforestation, the manufacture of cement, also contribute to this change