Submitted by 24_Elsinore t3_10kfowd in askscience
CrustalTrudger t1_j5qv300 wrote
> Are there any types of sedimentary rock that form in terrestrial environments, and what are the processes?
Yes. For this, it's better to discuss this in terms of depositional environment instead of the exact rock type as the latter are non-unique. Common terrestrial depositional environments are related to rivers or lakes. The types of rocks deposited by those systems will depend a lot on the system in question. For rivers, it can be quite varied. In rivers that are close to a high relief sediment source (e.g., a mountain range), conglomerates (representing river that were carrying gravels) are common. Moving down the system, grain sizes generally fine, so sandstones to silstones would be common. Most rivers will also have large amount of mudstones/shales associated with them as these represent flood plain (overbank) deposits. Lakes are a little less varied, primarily being represented by shales/mudstones, but you can even get carbonates in lakes as well. As you can see, rock types are non-unique, e.g., you can get mudstones associated with fluvial (river), pluvial (lake), or marine settings. Similarly, deep water clastic systems produce rock types and deposits that look pretty similar to terrestrial fluvial systems, but are deposited offshore. There are some types of deposits that are pretty unique to terrestrial environments, e.g., paleosols, loess, ergs, etc., but in terms of raw rock type, these would still be kind of generic mudstone, siltstones, or sandstones broadly. They would largely be distinguished on the basis of primary features. E.g., Erg deposits that become sandstones will tend to have massive crossbeds, like the Navajo Sandstone.
> Generally it seems that lithification happens in marine environments, the rock is then uplifted into the terrestrial environment, where it then erodes back to the sea. Does lithification generally not happen on land because the accumulation of new sediment is not enough to replace or overtake sediment loss to erosion?
So the focus on lithification vs deposition is kind of misplaced. Regardless of whether we're talking terrestrial vs marine, lithification is not happening at the surface, it's only after burial. Depending on location and the progression of environments, marine deposits could be lithified after being buried by terrestrial deposits (during regressions, i.e., sea level falls) or terrestrial deposits could be lithified after being buried by marine deposits (during transgressions, i.e., sea level rise). Thus, it would be better to move your focus away from lithification in this context.
The main difference between marine and terrestrial environments is accommodation space, i.e., the difference in elevation between the current surface of the Earth in that location and the maximum height to which sediments could be deposited (usually sea level, but not always). Effectively, accommodation space is a hole. For marine environments, there's pretty much always accommodation space. For terrestrial environments, accommodation space is more rare and will be typically localized where there is some process driving subsidence, i.e., a force making a hole. If there's no hole for sediment to fill, it will "bypass", i.e., it will keep moving until it reaches an area where it can fill a hole. This ends up meaning that there are lots of areas in terrestrial environments that are not conducive to sediments depositing. But there definitely are areas where sediments can (and do) deposit in terrestrial environments.
AStrangerSaysHi t1_j5s2n5u wrote
I don't know why reading this answer triggered a childhood memory for me, but: as a kid, I used to love loess... rocks? stones? collections? deposits? clumps?... and would collect bits of it whenever we visited eastern Georgia on vacations (I'm from the dueling banjos part of Georgia for reference). I remember loving the texture of those little bits.
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