Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun A fine-grained sediment rich in organic matter, formed at the bottom of a body of water.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun an
aquatic sludge -like sediment rich inorganic matter formed instagnant water
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun sludge (rich in organic matter) that accumulates at the bottom of lakes or oceans
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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Throughout the Black Sea the cores showed the same stratigraphy: a sediment with remains of freshwater mollusks overlain by a wet, dark, organic-rich layer known as a sapropel, above which are normal marine sediments with saltwater mollusk shells.
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Remains of freshwater creatures killed by the saltwater and of terrestrial plants inundated by it settled in an organic rich blanket over the bottom, the sapropel found throughout the Black Sea basin today.
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(Another expedition obtained similar dates for the base of the sapropel in nine other cores.)
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Gert de Lange investigated the most recently developed bed, sapropel S1.
innovations-report 2008
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Going upward from this depth level, the organic content of sapropel S1 decreases corresponding to an increasing average oxygen content and concomitant breakdown of the organic material.
innovations-report 2008
qms commented on the word sapropel
Antiquity’s singers were apt to tell
Of ominous blooms of asphodel.
Persephone’s bower
Was full of this flower,
Bred of the netherworld’s sapropel.
June 23, 2018