Sedimentation and flooding events

 I took a bottle of water, added some sand and gave it a shake. The biggest particles of sand fell to the bottom immediately.

After a week, even the smallest particles had settled.

I was tipped off about this paper. It's an important one because it can help us to be sure that the climate is changing and that extreme weather events are becoming more common. Our problem is lack of weather records from beyond a couple of centuries back. The researchers were trying to find out how extreme flooding events can be traced in the sediment laid down on the bottom of Bassenthwaite Lake. One figure suggests that sediment settles at about 1cm a year. I'm still reading the paper so there'll be more on this.