Sedimentary rock
Sedimentary rock:-
Sedimentary rock, rock formed at or near the Earth’s surface by the accumulation and lithification of sediment (detrital rock) or by the precipitation from solution at normal surface temperatures (chemical rock). Sedimentary rocks are the most common rocks exposed on the Earth’s surface but are only a minor constituent of the entire crust, which is dominated by igneous and metamorphic rocks.
Sedimentary rocks are produced by the weathering of preexisting rocks and the subsequent transportation and deposition of the weathering products. Weathering refers to the various processes of physical disintegration and chemical decomposition that occur when rocks at the Earth’s surface are exposed to the atmosphere (mainly in the form of rainfall) and the hydrosphere. These processes produce soil, unconsolidated rock detritus, and components dissolved in groundwater and runoff. Erosion is the process by which weathering products are transported away from the weathering site, either as solid material or as dissolved components, eventually to be deposited as sediment. Any unconsolidated deposit of solid weathered material constitutes sediment. It can form as the result of deposition of grains from moving bodies of water or wind, from the melting of glacial ice, and from the down slope slumping (sliding) of rock and soil masses in response to gravity, as well as by precipitation of the dissolved products of weathering under the conditions of low temperature and pressure that prevail at or near the surface of the Earth.
Sedimentary rocks are the lithified equivalents of sediments. They typically are produced by cementing, compacting, and otherwise solidifying preexisting unconsolidated sediments. Some varieties of sedimentary rock, however, are precipitated directly into their solid sedimentary form and exhibit no intervening existence as sediment. Organic reefs and bedded evaporites are examples of such rocks. Because the processes of physical (mechanical) weathering and chemical weathering are significantly different, they generate markedly distinct products and two fundamentally different kinds of sediment and sedimentary rock: (1) terrigenous clastic sedimentary rocks and (2) allochemical and orthochemical sedimentary rocks.
Clastic terrigenous sedimentary rocks consist of rock and mineral grains, or clasts, of varying size, ranging from clay-, silt-, and sand- up to pebble-, cobble-, and boulder-size materials. These clasts are transported by gravity, mudflows, running water, glaciers, and wind and eventually are deposited in various settings (e.g., in desert dunes, on alluvial fans, across continental shelves, and in river deltas). Because the agents of transportation commonly sort out discrete particles by clast size, terrigenous clastic sedimentary rocks are further subdivided on the basis of average clast diameter. Coarse pebbles, cobbles, and boulder-size gravels lithify to form conglomerate and breccia; sand becomes sandstone; and silt and clay form siltstone, claystone, mudrock, and shale.
Chemical sedimentary rocks form by chemical and organic reprecipitation of the dissolved products of chemical weathering that are removed from the weathering site. Allochemical sedimentary rocks, such as many limestones and cherts, consist of solid precipitated nondetrital fragments (allochems) that undergo a brief history of transport and abrasion prior to deposition as nonterrigenous clasts. Examples are calcareous or siliceous shell fragments and oöids, which are concentrically layered spherical grains of calcium carbonate. Orthochemical sedimentary rocks, on the other hand, consist of dissolved constituents that are directly precipitated as solid sedimentary rock and thus do not undergo transportation. Orthochemical sedimentary rocks include some limestones, bedded evaporite deposits of halite, gypsum, and anhydrite, and banded iron formations.
Sediments and sedimentary rocks are confined to the Earth’s crust, which is the thin, light outer solid skin of the Earth ranging in thickness from 40–100 kilometres (25 to 62 miles) in the continental blocks to 4–10 kilometres in the ocean basins. Igneous and metamorphic rocks constitute the bulk of the crust. The total volume of sediment and sedimentary rocks can be either directly measured using exposed rock sequences, drill-hole data, and seismic profiles or indirectly estimated by comparing the chemistry of major sedimentary rock types to the overall chemistry of the crust from which they are weathered. Both methods indicate that the Earth’s sediment-sedimentary rock shell forms only about 5 percent by volume of the terrestrial crust, which in turn accounts for less than 1 percent of the Earth’s total volume. On the other hand, the area of outcrop and exposure of sediment and sedimentary rock comprises 75 percent of the land surface and well over 90 percent of the ocean basins and continental margins. In other words, 80–90 percent of the surface area of the Earth is mantled with sediment or sedimentary rocks rather than with igneous or metamorphic varieties. The sediment-sedimentary rock shell forms only a thin superficial layer. The mean shell thickness in continental areas is 1.8 kilometres; the sediment shell in the ocean basins is roughly 0.3 kilometre. Rearranging this shell as a globally encircling layer (and depending on the raw estimates incorporated into the model), the shell thickness would be roughly 1–3 kilometres.
Despite the relatively insignificant volume of the sedimentary rock shell, not only are most rocks exposed at the terrestrial surface of the sedimentary variety, but many of the significant events in Earth history are most accurately dated and documented by analyzing and interpreting the sedimentary rock record instead of the more voluminous igneous and metamorphic rock record. When properly understood and interpreted, sedimentary rocks provide information on ancient geography, termed paleogeography. A map of the distribution of sediments that formed in shallow oceans along alluvial fans bordering rising mountains or in deep, subsiding ocean trenches will indicate past relationships between seas and landmasses. An accurate inter pretion of paleogeography and depositional settings allows conclusions to be made about the evolution of mountain systems, continental blocks, and ocean basins, as well as about the origin and evolution of the atmosphere and hydrosphere. Sedimentary rocks contain the fossil record of ancient life-forms that enables the documentation of the evolutionary advancement from simple to complex organisms in the plant and animal kingdoms. Also, the study of the various folds or bends and breaks or faults in the strata of sedimentary rocks permits the structural geology or history of deformation to be ascertained.
Finally, it is appropriate to underscore the economic importance of sedimentary rocks. For example, they contain essentially the world’s entire store of oil and natural gas, coal, phosphates, salt deposits, groundwater, and other natural resources.
Several sub disciplines of geology deal specifically with the analysis, interpretation, and origin of sediments and sedimentary rocks. Sedimentary petrology is the study of their occurrence, composition, texture, and other overall characteristics, while sedimentology emphasizes the processes by which sediments are transported and deposited. Sedimentary petrography involves the classification and study of sedimentary rocks using the petrographic microscope. Stratigraphy covers all aspects of sedimentary rocks, particularly from the perspective of their age and regional relationships as well as the correlation of sedimentary rocks in one region with sedimentary rock sequences elsewhere. (For further information about these fields, see geologic sciences.)
CLASSIFICATION SYSTEMS
In general, geologists have attempted to classify sedimentary rocks on a natural basis, but some schemes have genetic implications (i.e.,knowledge of origin of a particular rock type is assumed), and many classifications reflect the philosophy, training, and experience of those who propound them. No scheme has found universal acceptance, and discussion here will centre on some proposals.
The book Rocks and Rock Minerals by Louis V. Pirsson was first published in 1908, and it has enjoyed various revisions. Sedimentary rocks are classified there rather simplistically according to physical characteristics and composition into detrital and nondetrital rocks.
Terms designating composition and physical characteristics
Numerous other attempts have been made to classify sedimentary rocks. The most significant advance occurred in 1948 with the publication in the Journal of Geology of three definitive articles by the American geologists Francis J. Pettijohn, Robert R. Shrock, and Paul D. Krynine. Their classifications provide the basis for all modern discussion of the subject. The nomenclature associated with several schemes of classifying clastic and nonclastic rocks will be discussed in the following sections, but a rough division of sedimentary rocks based on chemical composition is shown in Figure 1.
For the purposes of the present discussion, three major categories of sedimentary rocks are recognized: (1) terrigenous clastic sedimentary rocks, (2) carbonates (limestone and dolomite), and (3) noncarbonate chemical sedimentary rocks. Terrigenous clastic sedimentary rocks are composed of the detrital fragments of preexisting rocks and minerals and are conventionally considered to be equivalent to clastic sedimentary rocks in general. Because most of the clasts are rich in silica, they are also referred to as siliciclastic sedimentary rocks. Siliciclastics are further subdivided on the basis of clast diameter into conglomerate and breccia, sandstone, siltstone, and finer-than-silt-sized mudrock (shale, claystone, and mudstone). The carbonates, limestones and dolomites, consist of the minerals aragonite, calcite, and dolomite. They are chemical sedimentary rocks in the sense that they possess at least in part a crystalline, interlocking mosaic of precipitated carbonate mineral grains. However, because individual grains such as fossil shell fragments exist for some period of time as sedimentary clasts, similar to transported quartz or feldspar clasts, most carbonates bear some textural affinities to the terrigenous clastic sedimentary rocks. The noncarbonate chemical sedimentary rocks include several rock types that are uncommon in the sedimentary rock record but remain important either from an economic point of view or because their deposition requires unusual settings. Specific varieties discussed below include siliceous rocks (cherts), phosphate rocks (phosphorites), evaporites, iron-rich sedimentary rocks (iron formations and ironstones), and organic-rich (carbonaceous) deposits in sedimentary rocks (coal, oil shale, and petroleum).
Despite the diversity of sedimentary rocks, direct measurement of the relative abundance of the specific types based on the study of exposed sequences suggests that only three varieties account for the bulk of all sedimentary rocks: mudrock, 47 percent; sandstone, 31 percent; and carbonate, 22 percent. Another method, which involves comparing the chemical composition of major sedimentary rock types with the chemistry of the Earth’s continental crust, yields somewhat different numbers: mudrock, 79 percent; sandstone, 13 percent; and carbonate, 8 percent. Most sedimentary petrologists concede that the sedimentary rock record preserved and exposed within the continental blocks is selectively biased in favour of shallow-water carbonates and sandstones. Mudrocks are preferentially transported to the ocean basins. Consequently, indirect estimates based on chemical arguments are probably more accurate.
Terrigenous clastic rocks:-
A prominent physical feature of terrigenous clastic rocks is texture—that is, the size, shape, and arrangement of the constituent grains. These rocks have a fragmental texture: discrete grains are in tangential contact with one another. Terrigenous clastic sedimentary rocks are further subdivided on the basis of the mean grain diameter that characterizes most fragments, using the generally accepted size limits. Granules, pebbles, cobbles, boulders, and blocks constitute the coarse clastic sediments; sand-size (arenaceous) clasts are considered medium clastic sediments; and fine clastics sediments consists of silt- and clay-size materials.
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. Thus, a pebble conglomerate is a coarse clastic sedimentary rock whose discrete particles are rounded and range from 4 to 64 millimetres (0.2 to 2.5 inches) in diameter. A more precise description reveals the rock types of the mineral fragments that compose the conglomerate—for example, a granite-gneiss pebble conglomerate.
Sandstones have long intrigued geologists because they are well exposed, are abundant in the geologic record, and provide an enormous amount of information about depositional setting and origin. Many classification schemes have been developed for sandstones, only the most popular of which are reviewed below. Most schemes emphasize the relative abundance of sand-size quartz, feldspar, and rock fragment components, as well as the nature of the material housed between this sand-size “framework” fraction (see below Sandstones).
Fine clastics are commonly, but rather simplistically, referred to as mudrocks. Mudrocks actually can include any clastic sedimentary rock in which the bulk of the clasts have diameters finer than 1/16 millimetre. Varieties include siltstone (average grain size between 1/16 and 1/256millimetre) and claystone (discrete particles are mostly finer than 1/256millimetre). Mud is a mixture of silt- and clay-size material, and mudrock is its indurated product. Shale is any fine clastic sedimentary rock that exhibits fissility, which is the ability to break into thin slabs along narrowly spaced planes parallel to the layers of stratification. Despite the great abundance of the fine clastics, disagreement exists as to what classification schemes are most useful for them, and an understanding of their origin is hindered by analytical complexities
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