Exam 6: Sedimentary Rocks

A gastrolith is a petrified gallstone of a dinosaur, reptile or bird.

Sandstones are lithified mainly by cementation.What is the major process involved in the lithification of shales?

Lignite occurs in the prairie provinces and is actively mined and produced in Saskatchewan.

Which of the following is not a limestone?

Throughout geologic time, corals have been the only reef-building organism.

Laterally shifting depositional environments with time always produce ________.

What use is there in tracing out a single sedimentary unit laterally and observing its facies changes?

The mineral dolomite, which is the major mineral of the sedimentary rock dolostone, is a carbonate of calcium and magnesium.

Which sediment gets lithified to become sandstone?

What do you call a porous rock made entirely of coarse shell fragments?

What is the general name for microcrystalline quartz in sedimentary rocks?

Why do clays settle so slowly?

Fossilization by ________ preserves the most delicate structures by selectively substituting the original living matter with a mineral substance, one molecule at a time.This accounts for: sponges made of calcite, foraminifera made of pyrite, or coprolites made of apatite.

Why do geologists study modern unconsolidated sediments and sedimentary environments?

What is the most characteristic, original, depositional feature preserved in sedimentary rocks?

A vertical succession of sedimentary facies such as limestone mud to clastic shale to crossbedded sand could be caused by a lateral migration of environments such as moving the shoreline or dropping the sea level.

Shallow warm seas lacking major detrital sediment input from land tend to deposit carbonate muds and sands.

Which of the following sedimentary rocks would you expect to have originally been deposited by fast-moving streams?

Which major component of detrital sedimentary rocks only rarely occurs as a primary mineral in igneous rocks?

What does poor sorting indicate in a sediment?