SEDIMENTARY

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does sedimentary mean? 

• SEDIMENTARY (adjective)
  The adjective SEDIMENTARY has 2 senses:

1. resembling or containing or formed by the accumulation of sediment

2. produced by the action of water

  Familiarity information: SEDIMENTARY used as an adjective is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• SEDIMENTARY (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Resembling or containing or formed by the accumulation of sediment

Classified under:

Relational adjectives (pertainyms)

Context example:

sedimentary deposits

Pertainym:

sediment (matter that has been deposited by some natural process)

Derivation:

sediment (matter that has been deposited by some natural process)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Produced by the action of water

Synonyms:

aqueous; sedimentary

Domain category:

geology (a science that deals with the history of the earth as recorded in rocks)

 Context examples 

The conditions under which sedimentary deposits in it formed have been an open issue for decades.

(Signs of Ancient Mars Lakes and Quakes Seen in New Map, NASA)

He and his co-authors describe salts found across a 500-foot-tall (150-meter-tall) section of sedimentary rocks called "Sutton Island," which Curiosity visited in 2017.

(NASA's Curiosity Rover Finds an Ancient Oasis on Mars, NASA)

NASA's Mars Science Laboratory rover, Curiosity, has been exploring sedimentary rocks within Gale Crater since landing in August 2012.

(NASA Scientists Discover Unexpected Mineral on Mars, NASA)

There are unexplained sedimentary deposits near the planet’s equator, researchers say.

(Mars May Have Had Rings, and May Once Again, VOA News)

To identify organic material in the Martian soil, Curiosity drilled into sedimentary rocks known as mudstone from four areas in Gale Crater.

(NASA Finds Ancient Organic Material, Mysterious Methane on Mars, NASA)

This speedy appearance of life on Earth fits with other evidence of recently discovered 3,700 million year old sedimentary mounds that were shaped by microorganisms, first author, PhD student Matthew Dodd explained.

(World's Oldest Fossils Unearthed, The Titi Tudorancea Bulletin)

Each time a moon broke apart and reformed from the resulting ring, its successor moon would be five times smaller than the last, according to the model, and debris would have rained down on the planet, possibly explaining enigmatic sedimentary deposits found near Mars' equator.

(Does Mars Have Rings? Not Right Now, But Maybe One Day, NASA)

Using ancient sediment from outcrops along the edge of the lake, Emily Beverly, a sedimentary geologist at the University of Houston, along with researchers at Baylor University, generated a water-budget model to see how Lake Victoria's levels respond to changes in evaporation, temperature, rainfall and solar energy.

(Environmental change in Africa: Will it lead to a drying Lake Victoria?, National Science Foundation)

These lakes helped to trap wind-blown sand and dust, which accumulated over time and formed the extensive sedimentary deposits we see today.

(Signs of Ancient Mars Lakes and Quakes Seen in New Map, NASA)

The NSB contains some of the oldest sedimentary rocks known on Earth which likely formed part of an iron-rich deep-sea hydrothermal vent system that provided a habitat for Earth's first life forms between 3,770 and 4,300 million years ago.

(World's Oldest Fossils Unearthed, The Titi Tudorancea Bulletin)