Minerals bond grains of sediment together by growing around them. This process is called cementation and is a part of the rock cycle. Cementation involves

ion An ion () is an atom or molecule with a net electrical charge. The charge of an electron is considered to be negative by convention and this charge is equal and opposite to the charge of a proton, which is considered to be positive by convent ...

s carried in

groundwater Groundwater is the water present beneath Earth's surface in rock and Pore space in soil, soil pore spaces and in the fractures of stratum, rock formations. About 30 percent of all readily available fresh water in the world is groundwater. A unit ...

chemically precipitating to form new

crystalline A crystal or crystalline solid is a solid material whose constituents (such as atoms, molecules, or ions) are arranged in a highly ordered microscopic structure, forming a crystal lattice that extends in all directions. In addition, macrosc ...

material between

sediment Sediment is a solid material that is transported to a new location where it is deposited. It occurs naturally and, through the processes of weathering and erosion, is broken down and subsequently sediment transport, transported by the action of ...

ary grains. The new pore-filling minerals form "bridges" between original sediment grains, thereby binding them together. In this way, ''sand'' becomes

sandstone Sandstone is a Clastic rock#Sedimentary clastic rocks, clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of grain size, sand-sized (0.0625 to 2 mm) silicate mineral, silicate grains, Cementation (geology), cemented together by another mineral. Sand ...

, and ''gravel'' becomes conglomerate or

breccia Breccia ( , ; ) is a rock composed of large angular broken fragments of minerals or Rock (geology), rocks cementation (geology), cemented together by a fine-grained matrix (geology), matrix. The word has its origins in the Italian language ...

. Cementation occurs as part of the

diagenesis Diagenesis () is the process of physical and chemical changes in sediments first caused by water-rock interactions, microbial activity, and compaction after their deposition. Increased pressure and temperature only start to play a role as sedi ...

lithification Lithification (from the Ancient Greek word ''lithos'' meaning 'rock' and the Latin-derived suffix ''-ific'') is the process in which sediments compact under pressure, expel connate fluids, and gradually become solid rock. Essentially, lithificati ...

of sediments. Cementation occurs primarily below the water table regardless of sedimentary

grain size Grain size (or particle size) is the diameter of individual grains of sediment, or the lithified particles in clastic rocks. The term may also be applied to other granular materials. This is different from the crystallite size, which ...

s present. Large volumes of pore water must pass through sediment pores for new mineral cements to

crystallize Crystallization is a process that leads to solids with highly organized atoms or molecules, i.e. a crystal. The ordered nature of a crystalline solid can be contrasted with amorphous solids in which atoms or molecules lack regular organization ...

and so millions of years are generally required to complete the cementation process. Common mineral cements include

calcite Calcite is a Carbonate minerals, carbonate mineral and the most stable Polymorphism (materials science), polymorph of calcium carbonate (CaCO3). It is a very common mineral, particularly as a component of limestone. Calcite defines hardness 3 on ...

quartz Quartz is a hard, crystalline mineral composed of silica (silicon dioxide). The Atom, atoms are linked in a continuous framework of SiO4 silicon–oxygen Tetrahedral molecular geometry, tetrahedra, with each oxygen being shared between two tet ...

, and silica phases like

cristobalite Cristobalite ( ) is a mineral polymorph of silica that is formed at very high temperatures. It has the same chemical formula as quartz, Si O2, but a distinct crystal structure. Both quartz and cristobalite are polymorphs with all the members o ...

iron oxide An iron oxide is a chemical compound composed of iron and oxygen. Several iron oxides are recognized. Often they are non-stoichiometric. Ferric oxyhydroxides are a related class of compounds, perhaps the best known of which is rust. Iron ...

s, and

clay mineral Clay minerals are hydrous aluminium phyllosilicates (e.g. kaolin, Al2 Si2 O5( OH)4), sometimes with variable amounts of iron, magnesium, alkali metals, alkaline earths, and other cations found on or near some planetary surfaces. Clay minera ...

s; other mineral cements also occur. Cementation is continuous in the groundwater zone, so much so that the term "zone of cementation" is sometimes used interchangeably. Cementation occurs in fissures or other openings of existing rocks and is a dynamic process more or less in equilibrium with a dissolution or dissolving process. Cement found on the sea floor is commonly aragonite and can take different textural forms. These textural forms include pendant cement, meniscus cement, isopachous cement, needle cement, botryoidal cement, blocky cement, syntaxial rim cement, and coarse mosaic cement. The environment in which each of the cements is found depends on the pore space available. Cements that are found in phreatic zones include: isopachous, blocky, and syntaxial rim cements. As for calcite cementation, which occurs in meteoric realms (freshwater sources), the cement is produced by the dissolution of less stable aragonite and high-Mg calcite. (Boggs, 2011) Classifying rocks while using the

Folk classification The Folk classification, in geology, is a technical descriptive classification of sedimentary rocks devised by Robert L. Folk, an influential sedimentary petrologist and Professor Emeritus at the University of Texas. Folk's sandstone (clastic) c ...

depends on the matrix, which is either sparry (prominently composed of cement) or micritic (prominently composed of mud).

Types of carbonate cement

Beachrock Beachrock is a friable to well-cemented sedimentary rock that consists of a variable mixture of gravel-, sand-, and silt-sized sediment that is cemented with carbonate minerals and has formed along a shoreline. Depending on location, the sed ...

is a type of carbonate beach sand that has been cemented together by a process called synsedimentary cementation. Beachrock may contain meniscus cements or pendant cements. As the water between the narrow spaces of grains drains from the beachrock, a small portion of it is held back by

capillary A capillary is a small blood vessel, from 5 to 10 micrometres in diameter, and is part of the microcirculation system. Capillaries are microvessels and the smallest blood vessels in the body. They are composed of only the tunica intima (the inn ...

forces, where meniscus cement will form. Pendant cements form on the bottom of grains where water droplets are held.

Hardgrounds Carbonate hardgrounds are surfaces of synsedimentarily cemented carbonate layers that have been exposed on the seafloor (Wilson and Palmer, 1992). A hardground is essentially, then, a lithified seafloor. Ancient hardgrounds are found in limestone ...

are hard crusts of carbonate material that form on the bottom of the ocean floor, below the lowest tide level. Isopachous (which means equal thickness) cement forms in subaqueous conditions where the grains are completely surrounded by water (Boggs, 2006). Carbonate cements can also be formed by biological organisms such as ''

Sporosarcina pasteurii ''Sporosarcina pasteurii'' formerly known as ''Bacillus pasteurii'' from older taxonomies, is a gram positive bacterium with the ability to precipitate calcite and solidify sand given a calcium source and urea; through the process of microbiolo ...

'', which binds sand together given organic compounds and a calcium source (Chou ''et al.'', 2010). Cementing has significant effects on the properties and stability of many soil materials. Cementation is not always easily identified and its effects cannot be easily determined quantitatively. It is known to contribute to clay tenderness and may be responsible for an apparent preconsolidation pressure. The filtration of iron compounds from a very sensitive clay from Labrador, Canada, resulted in a 30 t/m reduction in apparent preconsolidation pressure. Coop and Airey (2003) show that for carbonate soils, cementation develops immediately after deposition and allows the soil to maintain a loose structure. Non-recognition of cementation has resulted in construction disputes.Coop, M. R. & Airey, D. W. (2003). Carbonate sands. In Characterisation and engineering properties of natural soils (eds T. S. Tan, K. K. Phoon, D.W. Hight and S. Leroueil), pp. 1049–1086. Lisse, the Netherlands: Swets & Zeitlinger For example, a land on a major Project is marked as glacier on contract drawings. It was so hard that it had to be detonated. The contractor claimed that the soil was cemented during excavation as it was formed due to the clay matrix as well as the gravel. The owner concluded that this was due to the weathering of the pebbles. Proper evaluation of the material before the award of the contract could have avoided the problem. Clay particles adhere to the surfaces of larger silt and sand particles, a process called clay bonding. Eventually, larger grains are embedded in a clay matrix and their influence on geotechnical behavior is limited. The clay confinement maintains a large void ratio even at high effective stresses, allowing the interparticle forces to spring up.

References

* Boggs, Sam Jr., 2006, ''Principles of Sedimentology and Stratigraphy'', 4th ed., New Jersey, Pearson Education Inc. * Boggs, Sam, Jr., 2011, "Principles of Sedimentology and Stratigraphy", 5th ed., New Jersey, Pearson Education Inc. * Chiung-Wen Chou, Eric Seagren, Ahmet Aydilek, Timothy Maugel.
Bacterially-Induced Calcite Precipitation via Ureolysis
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American Society for Microbiology The American Society for Microbiology (ASM), originally the Society of American Bacteriologists, is a professional organization for scientists who study viruses, bacteria, fungi, algae, and protozoa as well as other aspects of microbiology. It wa ...

11 November 2008 Retrieved 20 February 2010. https://www.geolsoc.org.uk/ks3/gsl/education/resources/rockcycle/page3559.html {{DEFAULTSORT:Cementation (Geology) Sedimentology Petrology Geological processes