Where did all the mud come from?

I have a simple and probably stupid question:

Where did all the mud come from? I've often wondered this when watching archeological digs where they do a geo-scan and then dig trenches...sometimes 1 feet deep, other times 6 feet deep and at the bottom there is a detailed mosaic floor, road or path.

How did it get under all that mud?

reply to post by AlwaysQuestion


look at the layers of rock in the grand canyon. there are what appears to be hundreds of diffrent colors within the "layers" of rock. over time these layers have had rivers carved straight through them and they take on the look of a "flaky biscut". thats time, man. over time life on top dies and decays. it adds another layer to the top and tomorrow something else will come and live above it only to be returned to the earth the next day. not days, years and meliniums really, but if you talking about excavating something more recent from like, 1983, then maybe its alot of ash from a volcano or something. It also depends on where the digging is taking place because local events like sand storms, mudslides and tectonic movement also factor in the accumulation of debris over a site.

The good doctor is right. As time marches on, it buries the past. The History Channel's 'Life After People' touches on this subject.

In most cases but in some erosion takes away in which case the artifacts and information is destroyed or the context is lost.

Trivia, about a thousand tons of matter arrives from space each year. But most of the stuff you see moved around is dust or organic contributions. Wind and water are the big movers of dust/soil.

Good old sedimentation processes.

[edit on 4/1/09 by Hanslune]