Cementation

Cementation is the precipitation of minerals in sediment pores, binding sediment grains together and helping turn loose sediment into sedimentary rock.

Pore water: Water occupying spaces between sediment grains, often carrying dissolved ions. It transports the dissolved minerals that later precipitate between grains.
Sediment: Loose mineral or organic particles deposited by water, wind, ice, or gravity. Cementation begins with loose grains that can later become bound together.
Permeability: A material's capacity to transmit fluids through connected pores or fractures. Pore-filling cement can obstruct the connected pathways that control fluid flow.
Compaction (geology): The reduction of sediment volume as burial pressure packs grains more closely together. Unlike cementation, compaction binds sediment chiefly through pressure-driven grain rearrangement.
Mineral precipitation: The formation of solid minerals from a solution when dissolved components become supersaturated. Cement forms when minerals precipitate from pore water.
Sedimentary rock: Rock formed from deposited sediment, chemical precipitates, or accumulated biological material. Cementation is one process that converts deposited sediment into rock.
Petroleum reservoir: A subsurface rock body with connected pores that can store and transmit hydrocarbons. Cement distribution helps determine whether reservoir pores remain open to oil and gas.
Overgrowth: A new mineral layer that grows epitaxially around a pre-existing crystal of the same mineral. An overgrowth enlarges a grain rather than necessarily forming a separate bridge between grains.
Calcite: A calcium carbonate mineral that commonly forms sedimentary rock cement. Calcite is a frequent cement that fills pores and joins grains.
Diagenesis: The physical, chemical, and biological changes that transform sediment after deposition and during burial. Cementation is one part of the broader set of post-depositional changes.

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SinteringCompared with: Cementation depends on a binder or precipitate rather than particle bonding by thermal consolidation.