Crossword clues for sedimentation
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Sedimentation \Sed`i*men*ta"tion\, n. The act of depositing a sediment; specifically (Geol.), the deposition of the material of which sedimentary rocks are formed.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
1845, from sediment + -ation.
Wiktionary
n. The separation of a suspension of solid particles into a concentrated slurry and a supernatant liquid, either to concentrate the solid or to clarify the liquid
WordNet
n. the phenomenon of sediment or gravel accumulating [syn: deposit, alluviation]
Wikipedia
Sedimentation is the tendency for particles in suspension to settle out of the fluid in which they are entrained and come to rest against a barrier. This is due to their motion through the fluid in response to the forces acting on them: these forces can be due to gravity, centrifugal acceleration, or electromagnetism. In geology, sedimentation is often used as the opposite of erosion, i.e., the terminal end of sediment transport. In that sense, it includes the termination of transport by saltation or true bedload transport. Settling is the falling of suspended particles through the liquid, whereas sedimentation is the termination of the settling process.
Sedimentation may pertain to objects of various sizes, ranging from large rocks in flowing water to suspensions of dust and pollen particles to cellular suspensions to solutions of single molecules such as proteins and peptides. Even small molecules supply a sufficiently strong force to produce significant sedimentation.
The term is typically used in geology to describe the deposition of sediment which results in the formation of sedimentary rock, but it is also used in various chemical and environmental fields to describe the motion of often-smaller particles and molecules. This process is also used in the biotech industry to separate cells from the culture media.
Sedimentation is a physical water treatment process using gravity to remove suspended solids from water. Solid particles entrained by the turbulence of moving water may be removed naturally by sedimentation in the still water of lakes and oceans. Settling basins are ponds constructed for the purpose of removing entrained solids by sedimentation. Clarifiers are tanks built with mechanical means for continuous removal of solids being deposited by sedimentation.
Usage examples of "sedimentation".
From data afforded by the eruptions in Java and in other fields where the quantity of volcanic dust contributed to the seas can be estimated, the writer is disposed to believe that the average rate of sedimentation on the sea floors is twice as great as the estimate above given.
On the floors of the seas and oceans we have not only the region where the greater part of the sedimentation is effected, but that in which the work assumes the greatest variety.
By the beginning of the Late Cretaceous, the inland sea was well established, and the limy waters produced chalky sedimentation over a wide area, from Kansas to Saskatchewan and from New Mexico to Minnesota.
This pyrophyllite is a quite soft secondary mineral with a count of only 3 on the Mohs scale and was formed by sedimentation about 2.
Cheffy was planning to draw water for drinking and washing via a sedimentation system a mile upstream, to replace the crude bucket-hoists they still depended on.
On glancing upstream Lex saw that two or three of the team who had been constructing the sedimentation tanks were making their way down the middle of the drying riverbed.
They had come now to the riverside, and were standing looking inland toward the rapidly enlarging sedimentation plant.
There is some value in knowing the rate at which sedimentation takes place in shallow arms of the sea, and how fast sedimentary rock is formed.
Walter Alvarez of the University of California, together with several co-workers, had a technique they thought could be used to establish archaic sedimentation rates.