What determines the composition of sediment?

What determines the composition of sediment?

What determines the composition of sediment? The source of sediment. Name the four agents that transport sediments. Water, ice, wind and the effects of gravity.

How do you identify a clastic sedimentary rock?

Clastic sedimentary rocks are subdivided on the basis of grain size. Secondary characteristics used to further distinguish clastic rocks are sorting, grain shape, and grain composition. Grain size: Clastic sediments are distinguished on the basis of average grain size.

How do you determine the grain of a rock?

Determine the grain size, or range of grain sizes, in the sample. Use estimates of grain size as follows: fine: < 0.1mm diameter, medium: 0.1 – 2mm diameter, coarse: > 2mm diameter. Take note of whether different minerals are of different sizes, and / or whether there are large variations in grain size.

What are clastic rocks identified by?

Clastic Sedimentary Rock Classification. Sedimentary rocks are classified on the basis of the texture (grain size) of the rock, and composition. The basic classification only concerned texture, using the Wentworth size scale. But any full rock name must specify both texture and composition.

What are the most common minerals in clastic sedimentary rocks?

Thus the most important minerals in clastic sedimentary rocks are quartz, potassium feldspar (microcline and orthoclase), plagioclase, clays, and oxides/hydroxy-oxides (hematite, limonite, goethite).

What are the features of the rock?

Rock Type	Observable Characteristics
Clastic	Made up of smaller rocks cemented together. Sometimes has fossils. Usually has layers.
Chemical	Usually a light gray, sometimes with crystals, sometimes with shells, sometimes just massive.
3. Metamorphic
	Usually has interlocking crystals and layers (called foliation)

Which of the following sediment sizes is the largest?

The largest sediment size is called a boulder. Boulders have a diameter that is larger than 256 millimeters (about 10 inches). Cobbles are the next largest sediment, they are 64 – 256 mm in diameter (about 3-10 inches). Pebbles are next in size and are 4-64 mm in diameter (about 1/6-3 inches).

What do all clastic rocks have in common?

Clastic sedimentary rocks are rocks composed predominantly of broken pieces or clasts of older weathered and eroded rocks. Clastic sediments or sedimentary rocks are classified based on grain size, clast and cementing material (matrix) composition, and texture.

What are the three most common clastic sedimentary rocks?

The most common clastic sedimentary rocks are breccia and conglomerate (formed from gravel), sandstone (from sand), siltstone (from silt), and shale (from clay)

What is the process creating clastic sedimentary rock?

Four basic processes are involved in the formation of a clastic sedimentary rock: weathering (erosion)caused mainly by friction of waves, transportation where the sediment is carried along by a current, deposition and compaction where the sediment is squashed together to form a rock of this kind.

How do we classify clastic sedimentary rocks?

The simplest way of classifying coarse clastic sedimentary rocks is to name the rock and include a brief description of its particular characteristics . Conglomerates and breccias differ from one another only in clast angularity. The former consist of abraded, somewhat rounded, coarse clasts, whereas the latter contain angular, coarse clasts.

What determines the composition of a sediment rock?

The composition of a sedimentary rock reflects many things such as, its source material, the processes of erosion involved in the preparation, the way the parent sediment is transported, the physical and chemical conditions prevailing at the site of deposition and the post depositional processes leading to lithification.