Thought Puzzle:  Think about putting a pile of mud, sand, and gravel in a pile on one side of a plastic basin, and putting water at the other side.  Gently slosh the water against the "shoreline" of the mud, sand and gravel (making waves).  Do this for a while.  What happens?

The working of the waves separates and sorts the different sizes of sediment.  The mud gets washed out of the mixture and carried out into the "lake".  If you allow it (that is, if your sloshing is not too vigorous or you stop sloshing) the mud will settle out in the water making a thin, muddy layer at the bottom of the lake.  The sand also gets separated and becomes concentrated at the "shoreline" where the waves wash up against the mud, sand, and gravel.  Depending on how you did the sloshing, the pile of sediment may become differentially eroded in some spots, leaving gravel behind after the mud and sand are washed out.

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