Rock Cycle Word Search With Igneous, Sedimentary and Metamorphic Lists

Print a rock cycle puzzle with its answer key and a closing line that asks how one rock family forms.

Name Date

Rock Cycle Word Search

Find every word hidden in the grid. Words go across and down.

0 of 16 words found

YWCRYSTALLIZEET

SEYDEPOSITIONKT

AAMSEOUIDIUAEOT

NTANVVRDBEIOOTN

DHGUXASIUNESBTN

SEMPENDFRWRETII

TRALAVATIRHDCSL

OIRICOMPACTIONI

NNBFNRLWLMRMGEM

EGLTONLSLATEELE

UCEMENTATIONLLS

PNUEGSSFXJQTEAT

METAMORPHICAHLO

IRRRQSSIGSORRON

MELTINGMYNYYNGE

This grid is wider and taller than its box. Slide it to see every letter.To drag, hold the first letter for a moment, then slide.Keyboard: Tab to the grid, arrow keys to move, Enter on the first and last letter.

SedimentarySEDIMENTARY
MetamorphicMETAMORPHIC
SandstoneSANDSTONE
LimestoneLIMESTONE
MarbleMARBLE
SlateSLATE
MagmaMAGMA
LavaLAVA
MeltingMELTING
CrystallizeCRYSTALLIZE
WeatheringWEATHERING
DepositionDEPOSITION
CompactionCOMPACTION
CementationCEMENTATION
BurialBURIAL
UpliftUPLIFT

16 of 24 words from the Rock Cycle Key Terms list.

Pick one rock family. Using three words you found, write how a rock of that family forms.

Start from a list

Easy: words go across and down.

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Word list

Large print Lower-case letters Name and date line on paper

The puzzle changes as you go. See the puzzle

Answer key: Rock Cycle Word Search

YWCRYSTALLIZEET

SEYDEPOSITIONKT

AAMSEOUIDIUAEOT

NTANVVRDBEIOOTN

DHGUXASIUNESBTN

SEMPENDFRWRETII

TRALAVATIRHDCSL

OIRICOMPACTIONI

NNBFNRLWLMRMGEM

EGLTONLSLATEELE

UCEMENTATIONLLS

PNUEGSSFXJQTEAT

METAMORPHICAHLO

IRRRQSSIGSORRON

MELTINGMYNYYNGE

SEDIMENTARY, METAMORPHIC, SANDSTONE, LIMESTONE, MARBLE, SLATE, MAGMA, LAVA, MELTING, CRYSTALLIZE, WEATHERING, DEPOSITION, COMPACTION, CEMENTATION, BURIAL, UPLIFT

Next step Give a spelling test on Crystallize, Batholith and Silica Build a puzzle from your own rock cycle notes

All 106 words

Three Rock Families 24

Bands Stripes of different minerals and colors that run through some metamorphic rocks.
Basalt An extrusive igneous rock with tiny grains, from lava that cooled fast at the surface.
Classify To sort rocks into the three families by how each one formed.
Clastic Describes sedimentary rock made of broken pieces of older rock.
Coarse Made of pieces large enough to see, like the crystals in granite.
Extrusive Describes igneous rock that cooled at or near the surface, such as basalt.
Family One of the three main groups of rock: igneous, sedimentary or metamorphic.
Fine Made of pieces too small to see easily, like the crystals in basalt.
Foliated Describes metamorphic rock with thin, repeating layers, such as slate; marble is not.
Grain One small piece or crystal in a rock; slow cooling grows large ones.
Granite An intrusive igneous rock with large grains, from magma that cooled slowly underground.
Igneous The rock family that forms when molten rock cools and hardens; named from the Latin for fire.
Interlocking Fitted tightly together like puzzle pieces, as the crystals in an igneous rock are.
Intrusive Describes igneous rock that cooled deep inside the Earth, such as granite.

Show all 106 words (92 more)

Three Rock Families, continued

Limestone A sedimentary rock, mostly calcite, built from shells and corals or settled out of water.
Marble The metamorphic rock that limestone turns into; its grains regrow and it rarely shows layers.
Metamorphic The rock family made when high temperature and squeezing change a rock while it stays mostly solid.
Plutonic Another name for intrusive igneous rock, which forms far below the ground.
Sandstone A sedimentary rock of sand-sized grains that natural cement has stuck together.
Sedimentary The rock family made from pieces of older rock or once-living things, pressed and stuck together.
Slate A metamorphic rock that splits into flat sheets; it started as shale or mudstone.
Texture The size, shape and fit of the pieces in a rock; one clue to how it formed.
Vesicular Full of small holes left by gas trapped in lava as it hardened.
Volcanic Another name for extrusive igneous rock, which cools quickly from lava.

Magma, Lava and Cooling 21

Batholith A huge mass of intrusive rock, mostly granite, over 100 square kilometers in area.
Bubbles Pockets of gas in lava; they leave holes in the rock when it hardens.
Chamber A large pool of liquid rock under the ground; magma that never erupts cools there.
Cooling Losing warmth; this step turns magma or lava into igneous rock.
Crystallize To grow into solid mineral grains, as magma does while it slowly loses warmth.
Dike A sheet of igneous rock that filled a crack and cuts across older layers.
Felsic Describes pale igneous rock and magma rich in the elements of feldspar and quartz.
Harden To turn from runny to firm, as lava does in the open air.
Intrusion Magma that pushed into older rock and cooled there without reaching the surface.
Lava Molten rock that has reached the surface, usually at 800 to 1,200 degrees Celsius.
Mafic Describes dark igneous rock and magma with plenty of magnesium and iron, such as basalt.
Magma Molten or partly molten rock below the ground; it may hold crystals and gas.
Melting The step that turns any of the three rock families into magma, deep underground.
Molten Made liquid by great warmth; describes rock hot enough to run.
Pluton A body of igneous rock made when magma cooled slowly below the surface.
Quick Fast; cooling like this leaves crystals no time to grow, so the rock looks smooth or glassy.
Silica The single most important ingredient of igneous rock; granite magma is rich in it.
Sill A sheet of igneous rock squeezed between older layers without cutting across them.
Slow Taking a long time; cooling like this gives mineral grains time to grow large.
Surface The outside of the Earth, where lava cools into extrusive rock.
Underground Where intrusive rock cools, over thousands to millions of years.

From Sediment to Stone 24

Basin A low area where thick piles of loose material collect, get buried and turn to rock.
Bedding The layering seen in sedimentary rock, each bed laid down on the one before.
Burial Being covered by newer material; the deeper it goes, the more a bed is squeezed.
Cementation Minerals from groundwater grow around loose grains and bind them into solid rock.
Clasts The geologist's name for the broken bits of older rock inside a sedimentary rock.
Compaction Squeezing of buried grains by the load above, which pushes out water and closes gaps.
Deposition The step of the cycle where moving material is dropped and builds up in layers.
Erosion The step of the cycle that carries broken rock away by water, wind, ice or gravity.
Evaporite A mineral deposit left behind when the water it was in dries up.
Fragments Broken pieces; weathering and erosion turn solid rock into these.
Layers Flat sheets stacked one on another; many sedimentary rocks show them.
Lithification Turning loose grains into solid rock; the name comes from the Greek for rock.
Mud cracks A pattern of splits made when wet ground dried and shrank, sometimes kept in rock.
Pore A tiny gap between grains, usually filled with water until the grains are pressed together.
Precipitate To come out of water as a solid; some limestone forms this way.
Ripple marks Small ridges in sedimentary rock that show water or wind once stirred the grains.
Seabed The floor of the ocean, where rivers' loads come to rest layer on layer.
Sediment Loose bits of rock and shell that have been carried somewhere and dropped.
Settle To sink to the bottom of still water, as carried grains do in a lake or sea.
Shells Hard coverings of sea animals; heaps of them can become limestone.
Squeeze To press hard from all sides, as the load above does to buried mud.
Stone An everyday word for hard rock, and the ending of two sedimentary rock names.
Strata The geologist's word for beds of rock or loose grains stacked in order.
Weathering The step of the cycle that breaks rock down in place, without moving it.

Heat, Pressure and Change 18

Align To line up; flat grains do this at right angles to the strongest push.
Aureole The ring of changed rock around a body of magma that pushed in.
Change What high temperature and squeezing do to a rock without melting it.
Contact The kind of metamorphism that happens where hot magma touches cooler rock.
Deform To bend or squash out of shape, as buried rock does under great force.
Depth How far down something lies; both temperature and squeezing rise with it.
Flatten To press thin; grains in a squeezed rock can end up like this.
Fluids Hot, watery liquids that move through rock and help change its minerals.
Foliation Thin, repeating layers in a metamorphic rock; the name comes from the Latin for leaf.
Grade An informal measure of how much a rock has been changed; slate is very low.
Heat What rises as rock is buried deeper. Past roughly 150 degrees Celsius, minerals begin to change.
Metamorphism The change of one rock into another while it stays mostly solid.
Pressure The squeezing a rock feels deep underground; with high temperature it remakes the rock.
Protolith The original rock, before it was changed into a metamorphic one; shale is this for slate.
Regional The kind of metamorphism that affects a wide area, as where mountains are built.
Shear A sliding force inside rock; one cause of the thin layers in slate.
Solid Firm, not liquid; a rock stays mostly like this all through metamorphism.
Stress Force pushing on a rock; when it is stronger from one side, layers can form.

Around the Rock Cycle 19

Bedrock Solid rock lying beneath the soil and loose stones; an outcrop is a place where it shows.
Continuous Never stopping; rock is being made, broken down and remade all the time.
Cycle A set of changes that can go around again and again with no fixed start or end.
Deep time The idea that the Earth's history spans billions of years.
Eruption Lava, ash and gas bursting out of a vent; it brings fresh igneous rock to the surface.
Exposure Being laid open to wind and rain, which is how raised rock starts to break down.
Geologist A scientist who studies what the Earth is made of and reads its history from rock.
Hutton James, 1726 to 1797, the Scottish thinker who saw rock as destroyed and re-formed over and over.
Interior The inside of the Earth, where rock is warm enough to melt or be remade.
Mountains Ranges pushed up where slabs of crust collide, raising deep rock to where rain and frost reach it.
Outcrop A place where bedrock shows at the surface and can be seen and touched.
Plates The great slabs of the Earth's rigid outer shell. Their slow movement drives much of the cycle.
Process A step that changes rock, such as melting, burial or uplift.
Recycling Using the same material again and again, which is what the Earth does with its rock.
Repeat To happen over again; the same grains can be rock, then sand, then rock once more.
Subduction One plate diving beneath another, which drags old rock down to where it can melt.
Tectonic Describes the slow movement of the Earth's great slabs, which lifts, buries and melts rock.
Transition A shift from one rock family to another over geologic time; any of the three can become another.
Uplift The raising of buried rock toward the surface by movements of the Earth.

How this list was compiled: Own work: the word list and every clue were written for this page. The facts in the clues were checked on 2026-09-19 against Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rock_cycle) and the United States Geological Survey (https://www.usgs.gov/faqs/what-are-igneous-rocks, https://www.usgs.gov/faqs/what-are-sedimentary-rocks). Spellings follow the American Heritage Dictionary (https://www.ahdictionary.com/). Eight words were added on 2026-09-20 and checked against Wikipedia that day. Licence: own work

How it works

This rock cycle word search starts with 16 of 24 key terms, Magma, Cooling, Burial and Uplift among them, hidden across and down in a 15 by 15 grid. Seven other lists bring the total to 106 words.

Read the full guide

One list for each path around the cycle

The Start from a list row, under the puzzle, holds 8 lists; five follow the unit: Three Rock Families (24 words), Magma, Lava and Cooling (21), From Sediment to Stone (24), Heat, Pressure and Change (18) and Around the Rock Cycle (19). On igneous week, pick the second; New puzzle redraws 16 of its 21 words. Easy Rock Cycle has 21 words of 4 or 5 letters, such as Lava, Dike and Pore.

A sheet that ends with a question

Print or save as PDF gives 2 pages on Letter or A4: the grid under a Name and Date line, then the key. Below the word list, two ruled lines ask pupils to pick a rock family and write how it forms with three found words.

Sediment reads inside Sedimentary, so the pair sits in separate lists and no grid hides one inside the other.
Ripple marks, Mud cracks and Deep time hide as one run of letters: RIPPLEMARKS. The key terms are single words.

Questions and answers

What are the steps of the rock cycle?

Magma cools into igneous rock. Weathering and erosion break rock into sediment, which burial, compaction and cementation turn into sedimentary rock. Heat and pressure remake rock as metamorphic rock, and any of the three can melt again. Most of these step words are key terms.

Does the rock cycle puzzle come with an answer key?

Yes, as page 2 of the printout, every word ringed. The closing question has no key: accept any three found words that fit the family, such as Magma, Cooling and Crystallize for igneous rock.

Which rocks are in the puzzle?

Six, two from each family: Granite and Basalt, Sandstone and Limestone, Marble and Slate. Everything else is about how rock changes. For more rock names, from Obsidian to Gneiss, print the rocks and minerals word search.

Why does granite have large crystals and basalt small ones?

Cooling speed. Granite comes from magma that cooled slowly underground, which gives grains time to grow large; basalt comes from lava that cooled fast at the surface. Slow and Quick are in Magma, Lava and Cooling. Tick Show clues, not words, to print the contrast.

All 106 words

Three Rock Families 24

Three Rock Families, continued

Magma, Lava and Cooling 21

From Sediment to Stone 24

Heat, Pressure and Change 18

Around the Rock Cycle 19

How it works

One list for each path around the cycle

A sheet that ends with a question

Questions and answers

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