Shores and Shallow Seas
Seas, oceans and lakes accumulate sediment over time. The sediment could consist of terrigenous material, which originates on land, but may be deposited in either terrestrial, marine, or lacustrine (lake) environments; or of sediments (often biological) originating in the body of water. Terrigenous material is often supplied by nearby rivers and streams or reworked marine sediment (e.g. sand). In the mid-ocean, living organisms are primarily responsible for the sediment accumulation, their shells sinking to the ocean floor upon death.
Deposited sediments are the source of sedimentary rocks, which can contain fossils of the inhabitants of the body of water that were, upon death, covered by accumulating sediment. Lake bed sediments that have not solidified into rock can be used to determine past climatic conditions.
Read more about this topic: Sediment
Famous quotes containing the words shores, shallow and/or seas:
“Not to these shores she came! this other Thrace,
Environ barbarous to the royal Attic;
How could her delicate dirge run democratic,
Delivered in a cloudless boundless public place
To an inordinate race?”
—John Crowe Ransom (1888–1974)
“Eternal smiles his emptiness betray,
As shallow streams run dimpling all the way.”
—Alexander Pope (1688–1744)
“I must down to the seas again for the call of the running tide Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied.”
—John Masefield (1874–1967)