Sediment vs. Decantation

By Jaxson

Main Difference

The main difference between Sediment and Decantation is that the Sediment is a particulate matter that is deposited on the surface of land and Decantation is a a process for the separation of mixtures.

  • Sediment

    Sediment is a naturally occurring material that is broken down by processes of weathering and erosion, and is subsequently transported by the action of wind, water, or ice or by the force of gravity acting on the particles. For example, sand and silt can be carried in suspension in river water and on reaching the sea bed deposited by sedimentation. If buried, they may eventually become sandstone and siltstone (sedimentary rocks) through lithification.

    Sediments are most often transported by water (fluvial processes), but also wind (aeolian processes) and glaciers. Beach sands and river channel deposits are examples of fluvial transport and deposition, though sediment also often settles out of slow-moving or standing water in lakes and oceans. Desert sand dunes and loess are examples of aeolian transport and deposition. Glacial moraine deposits and till are ice-transported sediments.

  • Decantation

    Decantation is a process for the separation of mixtures of immiscible liquids or of a liquid and a solid mixture such as a suspension. The layer closer to the top of the container—the less dense of the two liquids, or the liquid from which the precipitate or sediment has settled out—is poured off, leaving the other component or the more dense liquid of the mixture behind. An incomplete separation is witnessed during the separation of two immiscible liquids.

Wikipedia
  • Sediment (noun)

    A collection of small particles, particularly dirt, that precipitates from a river or other body of water.

    “The Nile delta is composed of sediment that was washed down and deposited at the mouth of the river.”

  • Sediment (verb)

    To deposit material as a sediment.

  • Sediment (verb)

    To be deposited as a sediment.

  • Decantation (noun)

    the act of decanting the supernatant liquid from a solid sediment

Wiktionary
  • Sediment (noun)

    matter that settles to the bottom of a liquid; dregs

    “the ice freezes the wine and sediment at the base of the cork”

  • Sediment (noun)

    particulate matter that is carried by water or wind and deposited on the surface of the land or the seabed, and may in time become consolidated into rock

    “there is a huge concentration of sediment in deltas”

    “it takes hundreds of thousands of years to turn the sediments into carbonate rock”

  • Sediment (verb)

    settle as sediment

    “the erythrocytes were allowed to sediment within the syringe”

  • Sediment (verb)

    (of a liquid) deposit a sediment

    “heparinated blood was allowed to sediment at room temperature”

  • Sediment (verb)

    deposit (something) as a sediment

    “the DNA was sedimented by centrifugation”

Oxford Dictionary

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