Lesson
Introduction
What are sediments?
Sediments are composed of:
(1) fragments eroded from existing rocks;
(2) hard parts of dead organisms;
(3) minerals precipitated from fluids (seawater or groundwater)
When the particles composing a sediment deposit are bound together and
cemented, a sedimentary rock is formed. Clay-rich muds will also compact,
as water is squeezed out of the mud. They might only look like mud, but
sediments and sedimentary rocks provide a record of the Earth’s history.
They can teach us a lot about the world around us.
