Loess in the context of "Tallgrass prairie"

Sediment is a solid material made of loose particles 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 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.

Sir Charles Lyell, 1st Baronet, FRS (14 November 1797 – 22 February 1875) was a Scottish geologist who demonstrated the power of known natural causes in explaining the earth's history. He is best known today for his association with Charles Darwin and as the author of Principles of Geology (1830–33), which presented to a wide public audience the idea that the earth was shaped by the same natural processes still in operation today, operating at similar intensities. The philosopher William Whewell dubbed this gradualistic view "uniformitarianism" and contrasted it with catastrophism, which had been championed by Georges Cuvier and was better accepted in Europe. The combination of evidence and eloquence in Principles convinced a wide range of readers of the significance of "deep time" for understanding the earth and environment.

Lyell's scientific contributions included a pioneering explanation of climate change, in which shifting boundaries between oceans and continents could be used to explain long-term variations in temperature and rainfall. Lyell also gave influential explanations of earthquakes and developed the theory of gradual "backed up-building" of volcanoes. In stratigraphy his division of the Tertiary period into the Pliocene, Miocene, and Eocene was highly influential. He incorrectly conjectured that icebergs were the impetus behind the transport of glacial erratics, and that silty loess deposits might have settled out of flood waters. His creation of a separate period for human history, entitled the 'Recent', is widely cited as providing the foundations for the modern discussion of the Anthropocene.

The Loess Plateau is a plateau in north-central China formed of loess, a clastic silt-like sediment formed by the accumulation of wind-blown dust. It is located southeast of the Gobi Desert and is surrounded by the Yellow River. It includes parts of the Chinese provinces of Qinghai, Gansu, Shaanxi and Shanxi. The depositional setting of the Chinese Loess Plateau was shaped by the tectonic movement in the Neogene period, after which strong southeast winds caused by the East Asian Monsoon transported sediment to the plateau during the Quaternary period. The three main morphological types in the Loess Plateau are loess platforms, ridges and hills, formed by the deposition and erosion of loess. Most of the loess comes from the Gobi Desert and other nearby deserts. The sediments were transported to the Loess Plateau during interglacial periods by southeasterly prevailing winds and winter monsoon winds. After the deposition of sediments on the plateau, they were gradually compacted to form loess under the arid climate.

The Loess Plateau is one of the largest and thickest loess plateaus in the world. Its 635,000 km2 area corresponds to around 6.6% of the land area in China. Around 108 million people inhabit the Loess Plateau.

The Stari Grad Plain, near the town of Stari Grad on the island of Hvar, Croatia, is an agricultural landscape that was set up by the ancient Greek colonists in the 4th century BC, and remains in use. The plain is the largest agricultural area on any of the Adriatic islands, and is remarkably fertile due to Ice Age loess deposition.

This landscape is almost entirely preserved from its original form. The ancient layout has been preserved by careful maintenance of the stone walls over 24 centuries, along with the stone shelters (known locally as trims), and the water collection system. The same crops, mainly grapes and olives, are still grown in the fields, and the site is also a natural reserve. The site is a valuable example of the ancient Greek system of agriculture, and was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2008.

In geology, drift is a name for all sediment (clay, silt, sand, gravel, boulders) transported by a glacier and deposited directly by or from the ice, or by glacial meltwater. Drift is often subdivided into unstratified (unsorted) drift (glacial till) that forms moraines and stratified drift (glaciolacustrine and fluvioglacial sediments) that accumulates as stratified and sorted sediments in the form of outwash plains, eskers, kames, varves, and so forth. The term drift clay is a synonym for boulder clay. Both are archaic terms for glacial tills with a fine-grained matrix.

In the United Kingdom, drift is also applied as a general term for all surficial, unconsolidated, rock debris and sediment that is moved from one place to accumulate in another and mapped separately or otherwise differentiated from underlying bedrock. In this usage, drift includes a wide variety of deposits, e.g. loess, glacial till, river deposits, colluvium, and so forth, of Quaternary age. However, this term is most commonly used to specifically describe glacial deposits.

The Liao River (simplified Chinese: 辽河; traditional Chinese: 遼河; pinyin: Liáo Hé) is the principal river in southern Northeast China, and one of the seven main river systems in China. Its name is derived from the Liao region, a historical name for southern Manchuria, from which the Liaoning province, Liaodong Peninsula, and Liao dynasty also derive their names. The river is also popularly known as the "mother river" in Northeast China. Coursing 1,345 kilometres (836 mi) long, the Liao River system drains a catchment basin of over 232,000 square kilometres (90,000 sq mi), but its mean discharge is quite small at only about 500 cubic metres per second (18,000 cu ft/s), about one-twentieth that of the Pearl River. The Liao River has an exceedingly high sediment load because many parts of it flow through powdery loess.

The Liao River is also an important geographical landmark, as it divides the modern Liaoning province into two broad regions — Liaodong ("east of Liao") and Liaoxi ("west of Liao"). Historically, this demarcation though was not based on the river itself, but on a large wetland that once existed on the right (west) bank of the lower Liao River known as the Liao Mire (辽泽), which stretched east of the Yiwulü Mountain to the Liao River from Xinmin to Panshan.