Biogenic silicate siliceous ooze

While rapid burial enhances preservation, the type of sediment produced is determined by the relative particle composition of the deposit. For example, rapid burial of biogenic silicate by clay minerals helps protect the shells against dissolution, but the resulting deposit is classified as an abyssal clay, rather than a siliceous ooze, if the sediment is less than 30% by mass BSi. Thus, prediction of the sediment type likely to be found at a given location requires knowledge of the relative magnitudes of the accumulation rates of all particle types. 

Biogenous oozes are either calcareous or siliceous. Calcareous oozes are predominantly the calcitic tests of coccolithophores and/or foraminifera, or the aragonitic tests of pteropods. The solubility of CaCOs increases with decreasing temperature and increasing pressure, and thus with increasing depth in the oceans. Aragonite is 1.45 times more soluble than calcite (Morse and Mackenzie, 1990), so aragonitic oozes are confined to shallower depths than the calcitic oozes. The compensation depth for each mineral is defined as the depth at which the rates of... 

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