Rock Cycle Crossword Puzzle

Print a criss-cross vocabulary crossword on the rock cycle: melting and cooling, wearing down and settling, heat and squeezing.

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Rock Cycle Crossword

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Answer key: Rock Cycle Crossword

1MA2IGNEOU3S4L5WMEAEA6PDYARIET7METAMORPHI8C9MSESEO10EROSIONROLUTILTR11LAVANIIERGNN12CYCLEGG

Across 2 IGNEOUS · 7 METAMORPHIC · 10 EROSION · 11 LAVA · 12 CYCLE

Down 1 MAGMA · 3 SEDIMENTARY · 4 LAYERS · 5 WEATHERING · 6 PRESSURE · 8 COOLING · 9 MELTING

Next step Find rock cycle words in a word searchPrint the rock cycle vocabulary worksheet

All 103 clues

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Melting and Cooling 28

  • Andesite Volcanic rock of intermediate composition
  • Ash Volcanic bits less than 2 mm across
  • Basalt Fine rock from quickly chilled flows rich in magnesium and iron
  • Batholith Large mass of deep-formed rock; its Greek roots mean deep stone
  • Cooling Loss of heat that hardens a melt
  • Crystals Mineral shapes that have little time to grow when a flow chills fast
  • Dike Wall-like body that cuts through the beds around it
  • Eruption Sudden outpouring from a vent
  • Extrusive Word for rock formed when hot melt flowed out onto the surface
  • Felsic Label made from the words feldspar and silica
  • Gabbro Coarse rock rich in magnesium and iron, formed deep beneath the surface
  • Granite Rock from a silica-rich melt that took its time setting below ground
  • Igneous Rock group named from the Latin for fire; 15 percent of the land
  • Intrusive Word for rock that hardened from melt below the surface
  • Laccolith Underground body with a dome-shaped top and a level base
  • Lava Melt that has flowed out; the word came from Italian
  • Mafic Label coined from magnesium and ferric
  • Magma What every fire-formed rock starts as
  • Melting What ice does in the sun and rock does far underground
  • Obsidian Rock that is glass, not grains, and breaks to a razor edge
  • Pumice Rock that is 64 to 85 percent pores by volume
  • Rhyolite Rock with more silica than any other that erupts
  • Scoria Dark rock thrown out full of bubbles, known as cinder
  • Sill Flat body that slipped in between two beds and lies along them
  • Tuff Rock that was once a fall of fine material from a vent
  • Vesicles Small cavities that pit a volcanic rock
  • Volcano Cone built by its own outpourings
  • Xenolith "Foreign rock": a fragment wrapped up in a larger rock as it hardened

Wearing Down and Settling 34

  • Arkose Sandy rock that is at least 25 percent feldspar
  • Boulder Largest size class of loose rock: over 25.6 cm wide
  • Breccia Rock of angular, coarse fragments; its name is Italian for rubble
  • Burial What happens to old beds as new ones pile on top
  • Cementation Step that locks sand into stone as natural glue hardens in the gaps
  • Chalk Soft, white, porous carbonate rock
  • Chert Hard, fine rock made of microcrystalline quartz
  • Clastic Word for rock made of fragments broken off other rocks
  • Coal Rock mined from seams and burned for fuel
  • Cobble Rock piece 64 to 256 mm across
  • Compaction The squeezing step: pore space shrinks under the load on top
  • Conglomerate Rock of smooth-cornered stones bound in sand or mud
  • Coquina Rock of shell fragments; the name comes from the Spanish for cockle
  • Deposition The settling step: a current loses speed and lets go of its load
  • Diagenesis Physical and chemical changes in buried grains
  • Erosion How wind, ice and running streams strip land and haul it off
  • Evaporite What drying leaves when it concentrates a solution
  • Layers What settled grains build up in, one on another
  • Limestone Rock that forms where calcium minerals settle out of water
  • Lithification The whole change from loose deposit to hard stone
  • Mudstone Fine rock whose first ingredients were clays
  • Peat Half-rotted remains of plants, found in bogs and mires
  • Pebble Stone from 4 to 64 mm wide on the standard size scale
  • Regolith Earth, the Moon and Mars all wear this coat of loose debris
  • Sandstone It makes up 20 to 25 percent of the settled-grain rock group
  • Sediment What a muddy stream is full of
  • Sedimentary Rock group from piled-up deposits; it covers 73 percent of the land
  • Shale Fine rock formed from mud
  • Siltstone Rock made mostly of particles between sand and clay in size
  • Strata Plural word for beds of rock, each unlike the ones beside it
  • Transport The moving step, between wearing down and settling
  • Travertine Rock laid down around mineral springs, especially hot ones
  • Varve One year's bed of settled grains
  • Weathering First step toward soil: rock crumbles without going anywhere

Heat and Squeezing 20

  • Anthracite Hard, black fuel rock, the most changed of its kind
  • Contact Word for change brought on by touching a hot body of melt
  • Depth Temperature climbs about 25 to 30 degrees Celsius with each kilometer of this
  • Foliation Leaf-like banding; the word comes from the Latin for leaf
  • Gneiss Changed rock with alternating darker and lighter bands
  • Hornfels Group name for rocks cooked hard beside a body of melt
  • Marble What heat and squeezing make of a rock of calcium carbonate
  • Metamorphic Rock group that started out as some other type
  • Metamorphism The transformation of existing rock into a new kind
  • Migmatite Rock that is part changed rock and part newly melted material
  • Phyllite Changed rock in which very fine white mica has lined up
  • Pressure One of the two agents, with heat, that remake buried rock
  • Protolith Parent rock: what a changed rock used to be
  • Quartzite Hard, non-foliated rock made from sand rock by heat and squeezing
  • Recrystallize To regrow as new minerals while staying mostly unmelted
  • Regional Word for change over a wide area
  • Schist Changed rock packed with platy minerals such as mica
  • Slate Fine changed rock that began as a mud rock, formed at low grade
  • Soapstone Changed rock made largely of talc
  • Solid Not liquid and not gas

Around the Cycle 21

  • Billions Deep time spans ___ of years
  • Cycle Round trip with no last stop
  • Diagram Chart of arrows from one rock group to the next
  • Geologist James Hutton, called the father of the modern science, was one
  • Gravity Force behind every landslide and rockfall
  • Hammer Rock ___: field tool for breaking off a piece
  • Lens Hand ___: magnifier for a close look at grains
  • Mountain Peak that weather grinds down grain by grain
  • Orogeny The making of ranges where one plate rams another
  • Outcrop Spot where the rock under the soil comes to light
  • Path Any rock can take more than one of these through the loop
  • Petrology Branch of science that studies rocks
  • Quarry Open pit where stone is cut
  • River Stream big enough to haul mud to the coast
  • Sample Hand ___: fist-sized piece of rock studied in class
  • Seabed Where much sand and mud comes to rest at last
  • Subduction The dive of one plate under another, which recycles it
  • Tectonics Plate ___: the motion that drives much of the loop
  • Texture The size and fit of the grains in a rock
  • Three Number of main rock groups
  • Uplift The raising of land that exposes deep rock to wind and rain

How this list was compiled: Clues written for this site for earth science classes from grade 5 to grade 9, in four sets that follow the paths of the cycle: melting and cooling, wearing down and settling, heat and squeezing, and the forces that keep it turning. Definitions and figures were checked against English Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0) and the U.S. Geological Survey's answers to What are igneous, sedimentary and metamorphic rocks? (usgs.gov/faqs) in October 2026. Licence: own work

How it works

This rock cycle crossword puzzle fits Letter or A4, answer key included. The first puzzle has 12 basic words, among them Igneous, Sedimentary, Metamorphic, Magma, Lava, Erosion and Pressure. Four more sets follow the paths of the cycle.

Read the full guide

A set for each path of the cycle

Melting and Cooling has Basalt, Obsidian, Batholith and Xenolith. Wearing Down and Settling has Sediment, Compaction, Cementation and Breccia. Heat and Squeezing has Slate, Schist, Gneiss and Protolith. Around the Cycle has Uplift, Subduction, Orogeny and Outcrop.

Figures a class can check

Clues carry numbers from the unit: 73 percent of the land for Sedimentary rock and 15 percent for Igneous, a Pebble from 4 to 64 mm, a Boulder over 25.6 cm, and Pumice that is 64 to 85 percent pores.

  • Print one set after its lesson, and Around the Cycle as the unit review.

Questions and answers

What grade is the rock cycle crossword puzzle for?

Rock Cycle Basics suits grades 5 to 7, with answers such as Lava, Layers and Melting. The four themed sets use middle school earth science words, such as Lithification and Foliation. These bands are our judgment, not a published standard.

Does the rock cycle crossword puzzle have an answer key?

Yes. The key prints last, on its own sheet: the filled grid and the answers by number. It is free, with no sign-up.

What are the three types of rock in the rock cycle?

Igneous rock forms when molten rock hardens, sedimentary rock forms from deposits that pile up at the surface, and metamorphic rock is other rock changed by heat and pressure. Each kind can become either of the others.

What are the steps of the rock cycle?

There is no fixed order. Melting and cooling make igneous rock; weathering, erosion, deposition, compaction and cementation make sedimentary rock; heat and pressure make metamorphic rock; uplift raises buried rock back toward the surface.

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