Additional sediment may bury these layers until heat and pressure metamorphose, or change, the underlying sediment to metamorphic rock. Additional sediment may compact the layers into sedimentary rocks. Metamorphic, sedimentary, and igneous rocks may then be uplifted, starting the rock cycle again. The water cycle is also known as the hydrologic cycle. Phases of the water cycle are storage, evaporation, precipitation, and runoff.
Water is stored in glaciers, polar ice caps, lakes, rivers, oceans, and in the ground.
Heat from the sun evaporates water from the earth's surface and the water then condenses to form clouds. It falls back to the earth as precipitation, either as rain or snow, then runs into the oceans through rivers or underground and begins the cycle again. C. Uniformitarianism Print section Uniformitarianism, or actualism, helps geologists use their knowledge of modern processes and events to reconstruct the past. If gravity had changed, water and sand would have interacted differently in the past, and the ripple evidence would be different. Uniformitarianism contrasts with, for example, the idea that past events such as floods or earthquakes were caused by divine intervention or supernatural causes.