Unit 5 Lecture Assignment_Sediment Settlement
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Unit 5 Lecture Assignment: Sediment Settlement
Name: Regan Muldowney
Date 09/20/23
All answers should be in
BLUE
font.
Objective:
To gain a better understanding of how sediment settles out of suspension specifically
in water, and how that sediment goes on to create layers and rock sequences. This assignment is
designed to be a hands-on learning experience to illustrate concepts learned in the Unit 5 module.
For this assignment you will need:
Dirt/soil, various sizes:
A handful of gravel-sized material
A handful of sand-sized material
A handful of clay-sized material
***All of these materials should be something you can find around your home. If you
have decorative stones and want to use those, that is fine, but make sure that you have 3
distinct sizes. One of those sizes MUST be clay-sized grains, or else this project will not
work.
A clear container, ½ - ¾ of the way full of water
***This container can be anything with clear sides: an expendable Tupperware container,
an empty pickle/mayonnaise jar, a clear bowl, etc. This will work best in a container with
a wide mouth, so if you use an empty water bottle cut the top off.
A container for your dirt/soil/rocks
The ability to take pictures of your project and upload them into this document
Estimated time to complete this assignment:
3 days (not full 24 hour days obviously)
Background:
*You should have completed reviewing all lecture materials before attempting to complete this
assignment*
There was an extensive amount of material on the different types of sediment, how sediment was
transported in currents, and how it settled out of suspension in this module. By now you should
know that coarse grains settle first and progressively finer grains will settle on top of those. What
about the rocks where we see variable grain sizes? What happens if the sediment is disturbed
before it is lithified? This “sediment settlement chamber” activity is designed to represent a more
realistic scenario of sediment settlement and the formation of rock layers.
The Experiment
**Read all directions carefully before starting this experiment**
1.)
Dump all of your dirt/soil materials into a container different from your container of
water. Mix thoroughly. This mixture is representative of what you may see weathering
and eroding at Earth’s surface.
2.)
Let’s create something like a current or energy flow now. Take your bowl of earth
materials and pour the mixed materials into your container of water as quickly as you
can. When you are finished pouring, record what is happening each day in your container
in the space below. Leave your sediment settlement chamber sitting for
3 days
and record
what is happening within the chamber each day. Once the 3 days are complete, you can
clear away the chamber and analyze your results.
DAY 1
Did any of your grains settle out of suspension when you finished pouring your materials into the
container? What size settled first? Was it the only grain size that settled? Why did this occur? If
this material were to suddenly lithify, what type of rock do you suppose would form?
The larger grains of gravel settled first which is because they are heavier which causes a
faster reaction. If it lithified, a rock would form which would contain larger-sized grains
inside of a finer-grained.
Take a picture of what your chamber looks like immediately after the pour and place it in the
space below. Align image to “Top and Bottom” so the image doesn’t overlap with text or other
images.
DAY 2
What does your sediment settlement chamber look like today? Are all the grains settled out of
suspension? Describe the layering on the bottom of your chamber.
Only some of the sand-sized grains have settled out of suspension but the clay-sized
remain the same. The layer contains the larger-sized grains at the bottom, the sand-sized
in the middle, and a small layer of sand-sized grains on the top.
Take a picture of what your chamber looks like today and place it in the space below.
Align image to “Top and Bottom” so the image doesn’t overlap with text or other images.
DAY 3
What does your sediment settlement chamber look like today? Are all of the grains settled out of
suspension? How does today differ from what this chamber looked like yesterday? How does it
differ from Day 1? Describe the layering on the bottom of your chamber
Today the larger-sized grains are at the bottom, the sand-sized grains are in the middle,
and the thick clay-sized grains are on the top.
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Take a picture of what your chamber looks like today and place it in the space below. Align
image to “Top and Bottom” so the image doesn’t overlap with text or other images.
Analysis
1.)
Describe how you pouring a bowl of earth materials into a container of water is
representative of sediment being deposited. Include the role of the energy that you used to
pour that material into the water with in your answer. Would the sediment have settled
differently if you had slowly poured it into the water? What role does energy play in
depositing sediments?
Pouring a bowl into the container shows how the sediment would be in the actual
environment. Energy plays a role in this lab by representing the water being poured
which affects how the materials settle. If I had poured it slower, it would have been a
longer settlement, and the layers may have formed together. The role energy plays affects
how the materials are set and the layers.
2.)
If you were to have shaken your container on day 2 or 3, what would’ve happened? Why?
Would the sediment grains have settled into the same layering as they were before? How
does this relate to what we see in sedimentary rocks at Earth’s surface?
The layering would have been completely different because of the mixture of the
materials in the container. This is a good example of when natural occurrences happen in
the environment such as earthquakes which causes a mix.
3.)
In this settlement chamber, coarse grains were present in your rock material. In a real-
world scenario, where are coarse grains typically deposited? Why?
They are typically deposited in environments such as rivers or beaches because the
energy is strong and high enough to move them.
4.)
Keeping in mind your answer to #3, explain how we see the sediment settlement that we
do in different types of landscapes? In other words, how does sediment tend to settle in a
stream channel, or in a lake, or in a desert environment? What role does energy play in
the settlement of sediment?
The way it settles depends on how the energy is controlled while transporting it. It
usually tends to settle with larger materials at the bottom and smaller materials on top.
5.)
Often, we see the same rock sequences repeated in marine rocks: sandstone, shale,
limestone. Limestone forms from carbonates deposited at shallow depths, shale forms
from lithified clay sediments, and sandstone forms from medium-sized sediments. Based
on what you observed in your settlement chamber, explain how we see this same
sequence repeated throughout the world’s oceans. In other words, describe the type of
deposition that must be occurring worldwide to create these sequences.
Sandstone is a high-energy environment; shale is a lower-energy environment where
smaller materials are on top and sandstone would be at the bottom.