Mud, glorious mud, there is nothing quite like it.
I am of course using the term “mud” is the most generic of ways as this post is just a bit of fun and a way of referring viewers to more detailed posts elsewhere in Jessica’s Nature Blog. Click here for a formal definition and description of mud. You can click on any picture in this post for a description of the image, and you can click on the link at the bottom of the post for access to the articles from which the images are taken.
The photographs in M is for Mud include wet soil, silt, and clay and dissolving materials from sedimentary rocks which themselves are derived from such wet-deposited materials. So the pictures show waterlogged soils; fluvial sediments of various particle sizes deposited on the banks of the lower reaches of tidal rivers; liquid clays and muds washed down from cliffs of mudstones, sandstones, and till which have been dissolved after heavy rain; lower shore and coastal salt marsh sand/mud/gravel mixtures; and beach boulders and outcrops composed of rocks such as the Belemnite Member and Shales with Beef member of the Charmouth Mudstone Formation, and the micaceous mudstone of the Eype Clay Member. Geologically there is a technically defined distinction based on particle size and origin describing the composition of different types of sediments whether fluid and mobile or solidified as rock. The images also include a couple of creatures with mud in their name as they prefer a muddy habitat. Here is the Wentworth scale of sediment grain size. Here is a brief description of sedimentary rock composition and constituent particle sizes.
Click here for posts which mention MUD.