Chapter 14 : Sediments in the Sea !

Chapter 14 Section 1: The Study of Sediments

Sediment Study Tools and Techniques

• What techniques do scientists use to study ocean sediments?    They use certain tools such as the clamshell sampler for large samples or other objects such as a piston corer and many more.
  
  
  First sentence : As you would expect,modern oceanographers use tools far more sophisticated than those used a hundred years ago to study the ocean bottom.

Vocab: 1.Clamshell sampler- when scientists need a large sample of the top sediment they use this tool.

            2. Piston Corer-an open tube on a cable that is dropped from a ship.

            3. Seismic Refraction- scientists study sediments using this

            4. Hydrophone- underwater microphone
            5. Resolution- drilling ship 

Stratigraphy and Paleoceanography 

• How do scientists use ocean sediments to study the past? Scientists used to use the sea floor theory,  which is when the new ocean floor moves away from the ridge, it ages and accumulates which makes the sediment thicker. Now they use stratigraphy and paleoceanography along with the old theory.

 First sentence: As you will learn in more detail shortly, sedimentation is an ongoing process.


Vocab: 1. Stratigraphy- study of sediment layers

            2. Paleoceanography- the use of stratigraphy and deep sea drilling.

 



 

End of Reading : 

1. When a scientist needs a large sample of the top sediment he uses?

                                

                                      a.) clamshell smapler

                                      b.) spoon

                                      c.) earth moving crane 

                                      d.) piston corer

2. The study of sediment layers is ?

                   a.) paleoceanography 

                   b.) sediment thickness

                   c.) stratigraphy 

                   d.) plate tectonics

1.To examine the past using stratigraphy, scientists study the sediment layers to look for clues in the rock composition , and other physical properties?

                             a.)true 

                             b.)false

2. Piston corers are limited to sampling down to about 15 meters? 

                            a.)true 

                            b.)false

1.As the crust is pushed away from the crest,                          begin to accumulate.

2. The                                                 is limited to capturing only the top sediment. 

           In this chapter it talked about sediments and how we get samples of them. They use certain tools and techniques to find out things about them. Some tools are thee clamshell sampler which are a set of jaws designed to get only the top sediment. They also use the piston corer which gets a deep sample and can go 25 meters deep. Some others are the seismic refraction which uses an air gun and a hydrophone to collect samples of sediment and deep drilling is also another one used to get sediment.

           New techniques used to find the age of sediment and sediment from the past are stratigraphy and paleoceanography. Stratigraphy is the study of sediment layers and is used to help figure out the old sediment from the young. Paleoceangraphy is just the use of stratigraphy, but it uses deep sea drilling as well. In the chapter they also mentioned how they used to figure out how they found how old the sediment was. Basically it depended on how thick the sediment was. If the sediment was thick that meant it was older and the thin sediment meant it was younger and it had just came up.

Current Research  

• They still use certain instruments such as long metal pipes , ships , and small submersibles.
• The small submersible carries one navigator and one scientist
• New water vehicles also used to investigate the nature of bottom sediments
• They say they know how old the earth is by these particular things: erotion, sedimentation, salinity of the ocean, radioactive method and Carbon-14 dating