A lot of the natural world that surrounds us is alive, whether it’s the trees at the bottom of your yard, or the enormous variety of plants and flowers all over.
However, if you look at flowers and trees being alive, you might come to wonder whether rocks are also living.
To put it simply, rocks are not alive, and in our informative guide below, you’ll find out all about why rocks are not classified as living things.
Are Rocks Alive?
The answer is no; a rock is not considered to be a living thing, because it doesn’t have certain characteristics that are prerequisites to life as we know it.
Rocks don’t reproduce in a manner relating to cell division.
Though rocks may grow larger over the years, they do this with chemical reactions rather than through cell division like living things.
On top of that, a rock doesn’t grow and change in the living sense.
It doesn’t adapt to different circ*mstances either, like place and temperature, molding to its environment in order to survive.
Rocks – What Are They?
To better understand why we can’t classify a rock as a living thing, it’s a good idea to look at what a rock actually is. Rocks are large bits of natural material.
This material has broken away from the surface of our planet, before being exposed to water and air that hardens it.
When part of the earth, the rock was put under immense pressure and heat.
This causes lots of different minerals to form together (such as sandstone, granite, limestone, slate, clay, etc.), essentially becoming the ingredients that make up the rock whole.
The rock itself can be made in a variety of different ways.
For one, it can be the result of chemical weathering, where larger rocks are broken down because of their chemical contents. This can take just days, or less.
Another cause is physical weathering, where larger rocks are split by harsh weather conditions.
These conditions include heavy rain, ice erosion, or brisk wind. This weathering can take anywhere between thousands and millions of years.
A third cause is down to volcanic eruptions.
When these happen, it creates molten rock (also known as “magma”), which then rapidly cools down and becomes solid. This solid is the final rock product!
How Do We Define A Living Thing?
There are many different characteristics that an organism must possess in order for us to classify it as “living”.
To put it generally, the term “life” is all to do with the natural force which animates living things and imbues them with the following characteristics.
Is It Able To Adapt?
Adaption is all about how something changes in order to suit the environment that surrounds it.
If the environmental conditions get worse and unfavorable to the organism, it can adapt in order to survive, changing its routine or characteristics.
Living organisms are built for the environments they’re traditionally in.
For example, a lizard that lives in a forest, with rain and wind, will look very different to a lizard that lives in the desert, where there is constant heat and no rain at all.
However, the traits needed for a type of organism to adapt all depend on the genes.
If they have the correct traits from those genes, then the organism can evolve over the generations in order to better suit its environment.
Rocks, as I’m sure you’ve surmised, do not have DNA, and thus, do not have genes.
Rocks are composed of minerals that are themselves composed of elemental co*cktails.
Does It Have Cellular Organization?
In order for organisms to function, they need to have cellular organization, which is how their cells are physically arranged.
These arrangements vary from organism to organism. For plants, they are normally arranged into tissues and then grouped into organs.
In animals, cellular architecture is a little more, shall we say… higgledy-piggledy, but rocks, by contrast, aren’t composed of cells at all!
Can It Reproduce?
Organisms can reproduce in two ways. One is asexually, where they make genetically identical copies of themselves. This needs no partner.
The other is sexually, where male and female sex cells need to meet.
This happens in the parent’s reproductive tract, where fertilization follows. This is the more common approach for animals because it is quicker overall.
Granted, rocks can be split multiple times under pressure, which is where the old adage “a chip off the old block” comes from when referring to our offspring, but this is multiplying through subtraction rather than reproduction — no entirely new rock is formed.
Can It Respond To Stimuli?
Living organisms respond to stimulation from things such as light and temperature because they can sense them.
Rocks are inertly reactive to the nature of their surroundings, especially on a large enough time frame, but they’re not stimulated to respond.
Rocks do not interject with a force of their own, rather, forces are always exerted on them.
Can It Grow?
Put simply, this is about the organism or object growing larger over time. This happens with animals and plants, as well as bacteria and cells.
Rocks can grow over millennia if conditions are correct, but not because they have the inherent ability to grow.
Rock growth occurs when water leaves a deposit on its surface. Over time, these deposits build up, potentially transforming pebbles into boulders.
Does It Have A Metabolism?
Metabolism occurs constantly in organisms, because everything they do requires it, whether it’s moving, breathing, or something else.
Metabolism happens within the organism’s cells, and is notably to do with converting the energy that is in their food and turning it into energy that can run their cellular processes.
Additionally, it is also to do with converting the food into building blocks, like proteins, as well as getting rid of metabolic wastes.
Rocks, on the other hand, do not consume and so wouldn’t need a metabolism if they had one… which they don’t.
What About Rocks With Lichen Or Moss On?
Rocks may be inanimate, but that’s not to say they’re always a completely lifeless void, as often living organisms such as lichen and moss will sprout on their surface, but it’s important to understand that these aren’t growing from within the rock.
The rudimentary aspects of potential Moss and Lichen growth arrive at the rock from elsewhere and are simply using the rock’s surface as a foundation for growth.
All the living processes that facilitate said growth are handled by the organisms themselves in collaboration with climate and other situational factors.
Final Thoughts
It’s a pretty magical and thought-provoking question, but alas, no, rocks aren’t technically alive, as they’re made up of elements and minerals rather than DNA and cells.
Perhaps this is for the best though.
Constantly being walked all over, tossed into rivers, ground into dust, heated to melting point to form glass… it would be a rough life for rocks in this day and age!
