Sedimentary Environments: Chapter Objectives

After completing this chapter, the student should:

1. Understand how a knowledge of modern sedimentary environments helps geologists to reconstruct the geology of the past and interpret life of the past.
2. Know how soils form and how geologists interpret ancient buried soils.
3. Be able to describe the characteristic sedimentary features of a freshwater lake environment.
4. Understand the erosion and depositional features of a glacial environment.
5. Know the difference between exterior drainage and interior drainage.
6. Know the kinds of sedimentary features found in deserts and arid basins.
7. Understand the basic dynamics of sand dune formation.
8. Be able to describe alluvial fan and braided-stream deposits.
9. Understand the dynamics of meandering rivers and the resulting sedimentary features associated with them.
10. Know what Walther's law is.
11. Know how deltas form and grow and be able to describe the structure of a delta.
12. Understand the elements of a barrier reef-lagoon complex and the types of sediment found in these systems.
13. Understand how fossils help geologists to recognize ancient marine sedimentary environments.
14. Know the various types of organic reefs, their features, and how they are formed.
15. Be able to describe what a carbonate platform is.
16. Be able to describe how stromatolites form.
17. Understand the importance of turbidity currents and be able to describe how turbidites form.
18. Know the various types of pelagic sediment and how they are deposited.