8.11| Interpreting Erosional Agents Depositional Environments

Instructions

The texture, size, angularity, and sorting of grains, sedimentary structures, fossils, and other features of sedimentary rocks provide insight into the environment in which the sediment was deposited. Using the content of the assigned reading, the lectures, the illustration below, and the table in your lecture textbook, identify the erosional agent, i.e. energetic stream, slow-moving stream, wind, etc., and the environment into which the sediment was deposited. Reach each question and choose the best answer choice. You have two attempts and no time limit.  

An illustration relating depositional environments to grain sizes and sedimentary rocks. In particular, it shows how the sorting and angularity of clastic sediments are directly related to their maturity or distance traveled from their provenance (source). 

Learning Objectives

• Course SLOs
  • Students can explain the rock cycle, differentiate among the three types of rocks, and use texture and composition to identify common rocks and their origin
  • Students can describe the role weathering, mass wasting, and erosion play in shaping Earth’s surface and can provide and/or identify examples of each of these processes
    
  • Students can differentiate between constructive and destructive geologic processes, can explain the energy driving these processes, and can identify examples of each
• Module SLOs
  • Describe the processes that form different types of sedimentary rocks
  • Use texture, fossils, and structures to interpret environmental conditions.