Ocean Sediment Flashcards
What type of sediment is the most abundant in the ocean?
Terrigenous 15 to 20 Billion tons per year
What are the four types of ocean sediment?
Terrigenous
Biogenous
Hydrogenous
Cosmogenous
What are the four types of terrigenous sediment and where is it most commonly found
Red clay and mud from rivers, wind transported silt, volcanic ash, and glacial sediment. All sediment is more common closer to where it comes from.
What are the two types of biogenous sediment? What are they made of? Which one is uncommon in deep water?
Calcareous ooze is made of calcite and is uncommon in cold deep water.
Siliceous ooze is made mostly of Quartz.
All biogenous sediment is made from the remains of living organisms
What is hydrogenous sediment? What does it include?
Sediment made from precipitation of sea water. Made of carbonates, phosphates, polymetallic nodules, and salts.
What type of sediment are polymetallic nodules? Where is it located?
Hydrogenous sediment usually found in deep oceans free from other sediments, common in Pacific Ocean
What is cosmogenous sediment? How much is there per year?
It’s debris formed from micrometeorites approx 20,000 tons per year, microtektites form during major events
How do oceanographers analyze ocean sediments?
They take an ocean sediment core to analyze different types at different layers
What type of sediment covered the Titanic?
Siliceous sediment
What type of sediment covers the Lucitania?
Terrigenous sediment
What type of sediment covers the Bismarck?
Silicon sediment
