Crossword clues for sediment
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Sediment \Sed"i*ment\, n. [F. s['e]diment, L. sedimentum a settling, fr. sedere to sit, to settle. See Sit.]
The matter which subsides to the bottom, from water or any other liquid; settlings; lees; dregs.
(Geol.) The material of which sedimentary rocks are formed.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
1540s, "matter which settles at the bottom of water or other liquid," from Middle French sédiment (16c.) and directly from Latin sedimentum "a settling, sinking down," from stem of sedere "to settle, sit" (see sedentary).
n. A collection of small particles, particularly dirt, that precipitates from a river or other body of water. vb. 1 (context transitive English) To deposit material as a sediment. 2 (context intransitive English) To be deposited as a sediment.
n. matter deposited by some natural process [syn: deposit]
v. deposit as a sediment
settle as sediment
Sediment is a naturally occurring material that is broken down by processes of weathering and erosion, and is subsequently transported by the action of wind, water, or ice, and/or by the force of gravity acting on the particles. For example, sand and silt can be carried in suspension in river water and on reaching the sea be deposited by sedimentation and if buried this may eventually become sandstone and siltstone, ( sedimentary rocks).
Sediments are most often transported by water ( fluvial processes), but also wind ( aeolian processes) and glaciers. Beach sands and river channel deposits are examples of fluvial transport and deposition, though sediment also often settles out of slow-moving or standing water in lakes and oceans. Desert sand dunes and loess are examples of aeolian transport and deposition. Glacial moraine deposits and till are ice-transported sediments.
Sediment is the solid material that settles to the bottom of any wine container, such as a bottle, vat, tank, cask, or barrel. Sediment is a highly heterogeneous mixture which at the start of wine-making consists of primarily dead yeast cells ( Lees (fermentation)) the insoluble fragments of grape pulp and skin, and the seeds that settle out of new wine. At subsequent stages, it consists of Tartrates, and from red wines Phenolic polymers as well as any insoluble material added to assist clarification.
Sediments in bottled wines are relatively rare, and usually signal a fine wine that has already spent some years in the bottle. So unaccustomed have modern consumers become that many (erroneously) view it as a fault. Many winemakers therefore take great pains to ensure that the great majority of wines made today (especially those designed to be drunk within their first few years) will remain free of sediment for this time. Wines designed for long bottle aging, on the other hand, frequently deposit crystals of tartrates, and in addition red wines deposit some pigmented tannins. Winemakers deliberately leave more tartrates and phenolics in wines designed for long aging in bottle so that they are able to develop the aromatic compounds that constitute bouquet. A bottle of wine containing sediment requires special care before serving.
Usage examples of "sediment".
Jurassic marine strata are often correlated worldwide with great precision and confidence by recognition of a regular succession of ammonoid fauna that occurs in the same sequence wherever marine sediments of suitable age are preserved.
Those who support transfer from Polynesia point to the fact that they can find no evidence for the sweet potato on Rapa Nui before 1600 AD, but surely this is not entirely fair, given that ipomoea batatas does not preserve well in sediment.
It took physical contact, breathing chalky sediments or tracing with your fingertips the outline of some paleozoic brachiopod, to truly feel the eons imbedded in a place like this.
All I know about the matter is, that one day Marheyo in my presence poured out the last drop from his huge calabash, and I observed at the bottom of the vessel a small quantity of gravelly sediment very much resembling our common sand.
The ceratopsids are known from the Upper Cretaceous sediments mainly from North America.
We were in a small bay then, its shores a dark sweep of sediment, grey slopes streaked with black and the metallic glints of cuprous green.
The oldest eukaryotes yet known, called Grypania, were discovered in iron sediments in Michigan in 1992.
In this latter case, as long as the rate of subsidence and supply of sediment nearly balance each other, the sea will remain shallow and favourable for life, and thus a fossiliferous formation thick enough, when upraised, to resist any amount of degradation, may be formed.
I thought the bones were widely spaced, even in good fossiliferous sediments.
Then again, if they were very close to the source, the leaking isotopes could still be trapped in the bottom water, next to the sediment and out of reach of their surface instruments in any regard.
The layers were ribboned with ancient striations, where eons of fire and sediment had birthed their early formation.
If the elite among the mercenaries had been skimmed off to form the Stepsons, then its opposite was stationed here in Tyse, like the sediment at the bottom of a cheap wine jug.
Wherever sediment did not accumulate on the bed of the sea, or where it did not accumulate at a sufficient rate to protect organic bodies from decay, no remains could be preserved.
When the stream rises, the sediment settles in this tangle, and soon extends the alluvial plain from the neighbouring bank, or in rarer cases the river comes to flow on either side of an island of its own construction.
A shaft of sun from between the willow branches pierced a pool below her and she could see a long, speckled trout resting in its warmth and puffs of sediment as a powter moved along the sludge of the river bottom.