Depositional environment
Okay kiddo, let's talk about depositional environment. Have you ever gone to the beach and played with sand? You know how the waves carry the sand back and forth? Well, that's kind of like depositional environment.
When rocks are formed, they can be made from all sorts of things like sand, mud, and tiny creatures. Depositional environment is just a fancy way of saying where those materials get deposited or placed over time. Sometimes they end up in the ocean, sometimes in a river, and sometimes on the land.
Each of these places is called a different depositional environment. For example, if materials like sand and shells are being carried from the shore into the ocean by waves and currents, then we call that a marine depositional environment. That's where you might find things like seashells or coral.
Or, if rocks are formed from layers of soil and tiny particles that build up over time in a river or stream, then that's called a fluvial depositional environment. Here you might find smooth rocks or layers of dirt that give you clues about what the environment was like when the rocks were formed.
So, depositional environment just means the place where rocks are made from different types of materials, and we can learn a lot about those environments by looking at the rocks themselves.
When rocks are formed, they can be made from all sorts of things like sand, mud, and tiny creatures. Depositional environment is just a fancy way of saying where those materials get deposited or placed over time. Sometimes they end up in the ocean, sometimes in a river, and sometimes on the land.
Each of these places is called a different depositional environment. For example, if materials like sand and shells are being carried from the shore into the ocean by waves and currents, then we call that a marine depositional environment. That's where you might find things like seashells or coral.
Or, if rocks are formed from layers of soil and tiny particles that build up over time in a river or stream, then that's called a fluvial depositional environment. Here you might find smooth rocks or layers of dirt that give you clues about what the environment was like when the rocks were formed.
So, depositional environment just means the place where rocks are made from different types of materials, and we can learn a lot about those environments by looking at the rocks themselves.