noun
definition
A collection of small particles, particularly dirt, that precipitates from a river or other body of water.
example
The Nile delta is composed of sediment that was washed down and deposited at the mouth of the river.
verb
definition
To deposit material as a sediment.
definition
To be deposited as a sediment.
Examples of sediments in a Sentence
The marine-part of the Lafayette is probably covered by sediments of later age.
The mountain structures originated in three great orogenic periods, the earliest in the Archean, the second at the end of the Palaeozoic and the third at the end of the Mesozoic. The Archean mountain chains, which enclosed the present region of Hudson Bay, were so ancient that they had already been worn down almost to a plain before the early Palaeozoic sediments were laid down.
As in other comparable cases, this figure does not make allowance for the oblique attitude in which the sediments were deposited, and should not be construed to mean the vertical thickness of the system.
The Mesozoic sediments were almost entirely laid down to the west and south-west of the protaxis, upon the fiat-lying Palaeozoic rocks, and in the prairie region they are still almost horizontal; but in the Cordillera they have been thrust up into the series of mountain chains characterizing the Pacific coast region.
The ridges and intervening valleys, long parts of which have an approximately parallel trend from south-west to north-east, were formed by the erosion of folded sediments of varying hardness, the weak belts of rock being etched out to form valleys and the hard belts remaining as mountain ridges.
They contain a great variety of sediments and igneous rocks.
The climate of the period, at least in its earlier part, seems to have been arid like that of the Permian, as indicated both by the paucity of fossils and by the character of the sediments.
Alumina is high in the finer clays (18 to 30%), and they are the most aluminous of all sediments, except bauxite.
Land masses are denuded and minerals containing silicates are carried down to the sea as sediments.
Secondary products, such as glauconite, phosphatic concretions and manganese nodules, occur though less frequently than in the hemipelagic sediments.
Both of these ranges of hills are composed of hard crystalline rocks, and between them lies the lowland eroded on the weaker sandstones and sediments.
Enormous quantities of borax, already exploited, and of nitrate of soda, are known to be present in the surrounding country, the former as almost pure borate of lime in Tertiary lake sediments.
After Devonian times the region seems to have been dry land until the commencement of the Upper Cretaceous period, when it was overspread by the Cenomanian sea, and the deposits of that sea lie flat upon the older sediments.
In India the same flora occurs in a thick series of fresh-water sediments, known as the Lower Gondwana system, including basal boulder-beds like those of Australia.
Afghanistan, forming part of a thick series of marine beds known as the Salt Range group. This group of sediments in the extrapeninsular area of India includes a basal boulder-bed, referred on convincing evidence to the same geological horizon as the glacial deposits of the Indian peninsula (Talchir boulder-beds), South.
Moreover, the Triassic rocks of southern Europe and other regions are typical marine sediments.
In following the progress of plant-life through those periods in the history of the earth of which records are left in ancient sediments, seams of coal or old land-surfaces, we recognize at certain stages a want of continuity between the floras of successive ages.
The southernmost mountain system of the Anti-Atlas thus consists of crystalline basement and Paleozoic sediments.
Bone in packing and floor materials derived from natural sediments is often uncharred and exhibits pale birefringence and signs of weathering.
This is due in part to the highly calcareous nature of some of the mineral sediments at the site.
Therefore, we are using the box corer, which allows us to recover undisturbed surface sediments from the seafloor.
We went downstairs and waded ankle deep in muddy water and sandy sediments.
Samples of pollen taken from cores bored from deep peat bogs or lake sediments are stratified, with the earliest part lying deepest.
Techniques using in situ produced cosmogenic nuclides have been developed to date sediments deposited over the past several million years Granger et al.
We have 5 days of allocated science onboard in which to collect cores of deep sea sediments - made up of beautiful fossil diatoms!
It consists of Permian-Triassic sediments, capped by Jurassic dolerite, and generally occurs above about 600m, except in the east.
In this proposal a series of experiments with graded sediments are detailed which will take place in the tilting flume at HR Wallingford.
I have studied long-term fire history of boreal forests in Finland by using fine resolution pollen and charcoal analyzes of varied lake sediments.
The sediments mainly comprise richly fossiliferous sands deposited in shallow sub-tropical coastal seas about 45 million years ago.
The distribution of this element in stream sediments is controlled by the underlying bedrock geology.
This means that coarse sediments may be located in hollows with no drainage exit, leading to the formation of groundwater gleys or peat.
This lecture describes the action of wind upon desert sediments and the resultant desert landforms.
The rocks of this period are characteristically red in color due to the oxidation of iron-rich minerals in the sediments under the arid conditions.
These sediments have not been well pugged or mixed and include unworked aggregates.
Similar patterns of development sometimes exacerbate the consequences of collapse of the unconsolidated sediments forming sandbars.
These sediments were formed in an arid, enclosed shallow seaway or saline lake between 230 and 215 million years ago.
These finds are now under threat as they become exposed due to the eroding sediments.
At present, the dredged sediments are disposed of outside the harbor, thus losing valuable mud from its ecosystem.
These conclusions are based on analysis of the carbonate content of offshore, beach and estuarine sediments.
Sublittoral sediments are predominantly medium sands with a low organic content.
However, some reworking of seabed sediments in the Solent is a probable auxiliary source.
This indicates that deep-sea sediments constitute a very important source of DON to the world ocean.
Clare Britton has added carbonate sediments and weathering to the simple Earth system model to look even further into the future.
This research also includes studies of the migration of gas through sediments, and the effect of gas on marine slope stability.
The method optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) is a way of establishing the age of soil sediments.
As the low-lying plains are altogether an alluvial deposit, the coarser sediments accumulate in the regions where the river first overflows its banks to spread out over the plains.
The coarser particles of the sediments are deposited near the shore as gravels, sand and muds, but the very fine particles remain in suspension in the colloidal form, and some of this may be acted upon by marine bacteria or (it is surmised) even utilized by diatoms as a source of silica.
Exposed riverine sediments (ERS) represent important river margin habitats that are associated typically with highly dynamic rivers with unregulated flow regimes.
Typically found scuttling about in vegetation or in the surface layers of bottom sediments, occasionally in open water.
Challenger Division scientists have been studying the seafloor sediments in the Canary Basin for over 20 years.