1) Cleopatra's Needle, an Egyptian obelisk carved from granite around 1450 BC, had clear hieroglyphs during its 3000 years in the dry Egyptian desert but the hieroglyphs faded quickly after it was moved to the wet climate of New York City in 1800. 2) Weathering is the breakdown of rocks through chemical and physical processes near the Earth's surface. It includes frost wedging, wetting and drying, plant and animal activity, and loss of overlying material. 3) Chemical weathering involves changes to a rock's minerals through reactions with water, oxygen, carbon dioxide, and acids from decay. It produces clay minerals and rounds rock edges through spheroidal