SGES 1302

INTRODUCTION
TO EARTH SYSTEM
LECTURE 16: Sedimentary Rocks

1
Exercise

How does weathering

produce sedimentary rocks.
Explain briefly with labelled
diagrams.

2
Exercise
How are sedimentary rocks classified
and distinguished from other rock
types?Explain, Exemplify with labelled
diagrams.
Give examples of interpretations of
environment of depositions from 3
examples of sedimentary rocks.
How are chemical sedimentary rocks
classified and on what basis are they
distinguished?
3
Rock cycle helps us to understand the interrelationships among different
parts of the Earth system
It helps us to understand the origin of igneous, sedimentary and metamorphic
rocks

4
Sedimentary Rocks weathering & transportation
Sedimentary rocks begin with the process of weathering.
Weathering, which is a set of physical, chemical and biological
processes that breaks rock into smaller particles while some dissolved
into solution.
Gravity and erosion agents remove the products of weathering and
carry them into a new location where they are deposited.
These small pieces of rock that are moved and deposited by water,
wind, and gravity are known as sediments.
During transportion, the particles are further broken down and
abraded.
During transportation and deposition, the particles are also sorted, both
in terms of size and density.
Most sediments are deposited by water in the sea, river,
swamp or lake.
Following deposition, the sediments may transform into rocks
(litification) by compaction and/or cementation.
Sediments produced by weathering and erosion form sedimentary
rocks through the process of lithification.

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Sedimentary Rocks - deposition
Sediments are deposited when transport stops, eg. when river
enters a quiet lake or sea, or when the stream velocity
decreases.
Fast moving water can transport larger particles better than slow
moving water.
As water slows down, the largest particles settle out first, then
the next largest, and so on, so that different-sized particles are
sorted into layers.
Such deposits are characteristic of sediment transported by
water and wind.
Wind, however, can move only small grains.
Glaciers move all materials with equal ease. Large boulders,
sand, and mud are all carried along by the ice and dumped in an
unsorted pile as the glacier melts.
Landslides create similar deposits when sediment moves
downhill in a jumbled mass.

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Sedimentary Rocks - lithification
The weathering of bedrock and the transport and deposition
of sediments are continuous.
As piles of sediment accumulate, the materials near the
bottom are compacted by the weight of the overlying layers.
Water flowing through spaces between sediment grains may
carry dissolved mineral matter, and over time or changes in
physico-chemical conditions, the sediments can be
cemented by precipitation of minerals.
About 75% of the land surface is covered by
sedimentary rocks, however it make up only about 15% of
the volume of the upper crust.
A large part of the Earths history has been reconstructed
based on information obtained from sedimentary rocks.
Sedimentary rocks are also important economically (coal,
hydrocarbon, Fe, Al, Mn, etc).

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Features of Sedimentary Rocks
Sedimentary rocks provide important evidence of Earths long
history
They are formed at Earths surface, accumulate layer upon layer,
each records the nature of the environment at that
time.
These layers are called strata or beds, are the most characteristic
feature of sedimentary rocks.
The beds are separated by bedding planes, each bedding
plane marks the end of one episode of deposition and the beginning
of another.
The thickness of the beds varies from microscopic to tens of meter.
Bedding in which the particle sizes become progressively coarser
toward the bottom layers is called graded bedding.
When inclined layers of sediment are deposited across a horizontal
surface, crossed beddings are formed.
Other important features found in sedimentary rocks include fossils
and sedimentary structures such as ripple marks, mud cracks etc.

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9
Sedimentary Rocks classification
Sedimentary rocks are classified by their mode of formation.
There are 2 main categories of sedimentary rocks:
Detrital sedimentary rocks: deposition of solid particles
Chemical sedimentary rocks: precipitation of dissolved substance
Detrital sedimentary rocks are distinguished based on particle size.

Particle Size Sediment Name Rock Name

Coarse (> 2 mm) Gravel Conglomerate /
Breccia
Medium (1/16 2 mm) Sand Sandstone
Fine (1/256 1/16 mm) Mud/Silt Siltstone
Very Fine < 1/256 mm Mud/Clay Shale / Mudstone

Although a wide variety of minerals and rock fragments may occur in the
sedimentary rocks, clay minerals and quartz dominates.
From particle size and other features in the rock, we can interprete
the environment of deposition .

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 Conglomerate
Conglomerates have
rounded, gravel-sized
particles. Because of its
relatively large mass,
gravel is transported by
high-energy flows of
water, such as those
generated by
mountain streams,
flooding rivers,
strong ocean
waves, and glacial
meltwater. During
transport, gravel
becomes abraded and
rounded as the particles
scrape against one
another. 11
 Breccia
Breccias are composed of
angular, gravel-sized
particles. The angularity
indicates that the sediments
from which they formed did
not have time to become
rounded. This suggests that
the particles were
transported only a
short distance and
deposited close to
their source.

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 Sandstone
Stream and
river channels,
beaches,
and deserts often
contain abundant sand-
sized sediments that
lithified to form sandstone.
Sandstone can have a
porosity of up to 30%,
which makes them
valuable as
underground
reservoirs of oil,
natural gas, and
groundwater.

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 Shale / Mudstone
These rocks represent
environments which have still
or slow-moving waters
(lakes, lagoons, deep
ocean basins), are the
most abundant sedimentary
rocks. In the absence of strong
currents and wave action,
these fine grained sediments
settle to the bottom where they
accumulate in thin horizontal
layers.

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Chemical Sedimentary Rocks-
classification
During weathering, dissolved materials are carried into lakes and oceans.
Some organisms that live in the ocean use the calcium carbonate or silica
that is dissolved in seawater to make their shells.
When these organisms die, their shells settle to the bottom of the ocean and can
form thick layers of biogenic chemical sediment.
Chemical sedimentary rocks are distinguished based on
composition.
Composition Texture Rock Name
Calcite (CaCO3) Fine to coarse Limestone
crystalline
Quartz (SiO2) Very fine crystalline Chert (light coloured)
Flint (dark coloured)
Gypsum (CaSO42H2O) Fine to coarse Rock Gypsum
crystalline
Halite (NaCl) Fine to coarse Rock Salt
crystalline

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Chemical Sedimentary Rocks
Limestone is the most abundant chemical sedimentary
rock
Limestone commonly forms in shallow water environments
where coral reefs thrive.
Many types of limestone contain evidence of their
biological origin in the form of abundant fossils.
Not all limestone contains fossils. Some limestone has a
crystalline texture, some consists of tiny
spheres of carbonate sand, and some is
composed of fine-grained carbonate mud.
Dissolved silica precipitates to form various types of
microcrystalline to amorphous rocks (chert, opal, etc).
Could also formed by biochemical accumulations
of siliceous shells fragments.

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Chemical Sedimentary Rocks
Limestone & chert requires precipitation of a
relatively insoluble substance from aqeous solution or from
biogenic accumulations.
Evaporite minerals such as gypsum and halite
precipitated from a saline solution that has been
concentrated by evaporation.
Evaporites do no precipitate until evaporation has
removed most of the water.
Evaporites are forming today in desert basins and locally
on shallow sea margins in hot climates (sabkha).
If a column of sea water 1000 m thick is evaporated to
dryness, the precipitated salt deposit would be about 15
m thick. Of this, 0.5 m would be gypsum, 11.8 m would
be halite, and the rest, 2.7 m, would be mainly salts of
potassium and magnesium.
The evaporites are important economically.

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Chemical Sedimentary Rocks
Coal is an unique chemical sedimentary rock. It is not
precipitated from dissolved substances.
It is formed by direct accumulation of organic matter,
mainly plant material (peats).
Plant structures such as leaves, bark and wood may still
be identified in coal.
Coal is produced by the burial of large amounts of
plant material over extended periods and depth, pressure
of burial.
Special conditions are required for the
accumulation of large quantities of
peat/plant material because plant debris normally
decompose when exposed to the atmosphere.
What is the ideal place for the accumulation of plant
material?

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 Exercise questions

Explain briefly the

-

classification of
sedimentary rocks.
-What are/explain chemical
sedimentary rocks
-what are detrital
19
Exercise

How does weathering produce sedimentary rocks.

Explain briefly with labelled diagrams.

20
Exercise

How are sedimentary rocks classified and distinguished

from other rock types?Explain, Exemplify with labelled
diagrams.
Give examples of interpretations of environment of
depositions from 3 examples of sedimentary rocks.
How are chemical sedimentary rocks classified and on
what basis are they distinguished?

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