Sedimentology for Dummies

Sedimentologist at work

By now, it should be no secret that one of the things that truly peeves our staffers is people who publish a huge corpus of freelance "work" at internet sites even though they are bereft of knowledge about their topics. In our humble opinion, as people used to say, the worst are the ones who've contributed multiple knowledge-free posts on related topics, mostly because... well, hubris – that, and greed. With us today is a freelancer who, although utterly lacking in the necessary background, we've found attempting to write about earth sciences eight times. Well, nine, including today: it's Mary McMahon (formerly S. E. Smith), with the WiseGEEK.com post "What is Sedimentology?" (now at niche AlltheScience.com)

McMahon managed to copy-reword-paste a definition of the discipline, correctly assigning it to the geology department and mentioning that a sedimentologist studies sedimentary rocks and sediments (although, for unknown reasons, Mary thought she needed to specify "geological sediments"). From that point on, however, McMahon did her usual bang-up job of misinformation and logical faux pas. Take. for instance, this bizarre statement:

"...[some sedimentary rocks] form as water trickles through a formation and transports sediments which slowly solidify into a rock formation over the course of centuries." So much misinformation, so little time. According to the staff geologist (yes, we have one), that daffyntion is probably the bastard child of misinformation about evaporite deposits and the process of diagenesis. Whatever the case, however, that "over the course of centuries" bit is a gross understatement... unless McMahon was thinking in terms of thousands of centuries. You know, millions of years? We aren't quite certain where Mary came up with some of her pronouncements, disturbingly strange misinterpretations such as,

1. "Sediments can cross continents and oceans, carrying along fascinating geological information..."
2. "Understanding both how sediments develop and how sedimentary rocks form is an important part of sedimentology."
3. "Some are interested in the Earth's geologic history, examining geological formations and geological strata to draw conclusions about traumatic events in the Earth's history. "
4. "A great deal of information about climate and weather patterns can be found in sediments, for those who know what to look for..."

Following is a rebuttal of those points according to someone who has actually studied sedimentology (instead of getting a liberal arts from a "distance-learning" college):

Sediments don't "cross continents and oceans." with the possible exception of a minuscule amount of wind-blown dust from the Sahara that can be detected on the east coast of North America. And what, pray tell, is that "fascinating geological information"? We know: the word is "provenance"... No, Mary, that's the entirety of sedimentology. It's an "important part of" geology. Interesting choice of words, that "traumatic"... But the fact is, all geologic history is of interest to a sedimentologist, not just a few events. Clearly, Mary did not know "what to look for..." Otherwise, she might have mentioned something.

Weirdly, McMahon mentions archaeology not once but twice and prattles about climatology as well, but never once mentions the industry that hires the most sedimentology: fossil fuels. 

We'll be honest: the kind of half-assed twaddle Mary (or S. E.) pounded out on her way to nearly 21,000 posts at WiseGEEK over almost fifteen years is the reason that we started this blog. Based on her body of work, we could probably devote an entire year to the stupidification of the internet as practiced by today's Dumbass of the Day (for the eleventh time), but we're pretty certain that would have the staff on the verge of self-immolation.

SI - SEDIMENTOLOGY