Sed Formation Flashcards
The process that breaks down rocks into sediments.
Weathering
The physical removal of material by mobile agents such as water, wind, ice or gravity.
Erosion
The transfer of rock and soil downslope under the influence of gravity
Mass wasting
Unequal weathering due
to the rock’s composition.
Differential weathering
The physical breakdown or disintegration of rocks at or near the surface.
Mechanical weathering
The chemical breakdown or decomposition of rocks at or near the surface.
Chemical weathering
The freeze-thaw action of water trapped within fractures of rocks that cause the expansion and contraction which would eventually disintegrate rocks.
Frost wedging
A mode of weathering near coastlines where salt from seawater accumulate and grow through cracks of rocks and fracture them while growing.
Salt groth crystal
Rocks that are originally covered and are then exposed are relieved from pressure, causing an unloading action and expansion.
Sheeting or unloading
Organisms, such as plants, can burrow their roots through cracks which breaks down the rocks into pieces.
Biological actions
The intrusions from beneath the surface induce pressure from below, fracturing the rock mass on the surface.
Intrusions
A solution mixture of reactive components specific to rocks.
Solution
Chemical breakdown of minerals in rocks due to addition of water.
Hydrolysis
Chemical breakdown of minerals in rocks due to exposure to oxygen.
Oxidation
The removal of materials or sediments by mobile agents such as water, wind, ice or humans.
Erosion
Most effective transport media
Water
Sediments rolling along the surface of the bed.
Rolling
A series of jumping movement of sediments.
Saltation
Sediments suspended in the transporting media.
Suspension
The volume of void space in a sedimentary rock.
Porosity
Porosity associated with the original depositional texture of the sediment.
Primary porosity
Porosity that developed after deposition and burial of the sediment in the sedimentary basin.
Secondary porosity
The measure of how much water can move through pore spaces which also describes how water easily flows.
Permeability
A property of curve being tortuous, or twisted, having many turns.
Tortousity
Occurs when transportation ceases and sediments accumulate on Earth’s surface by collective deposition processes.
Deposition
Encompasses a suite of low temperature processes that affect sediments after their accumulation, typically after burial.
Diagenesis
A process of lithification that results from the expulsion of intergranular fluids caused by increases in confining pressure during progressively deeper burial.
Compaction
A process of lithification that occurs when subsurface fluids precipitate minerals in the spaces between grains that bind or cement grains to one another.
Cementation
Early, shallow diagenesis that occurs shortly after burial.
Eodiagenesis
Later,
deeper
diagenesis.
Mesodiagenesis
Still later,
later,
shallow
diagenesis that occurs as sedimentary rocks approach the surface due to erosion.
Telodiagenesis
