Silt Silt can be visually observed with a hand lens, exhibiting a sparkly appearance. It also can be felt by the tongue as granular when placed on the front teeth (even when mixed with clay particles). Silt is created by a variety of physical processes capable of splitting the generally sand-sized quartz crystals of primary rocks by exploiting deficiencies in their lattice. These involve chemical weathering of rock and regolith, and a number of physical weathering processes such as frost shattering and haloclasty. The main process is abrasion through transport, including fluvial comminution, aeolian attrition and glacial grinding. It is in
Gravel chub type of habitat, increasing the turbidity of the current and the amount of silt in rivers and streams. Populations in southern Minnesota are experiencing a great amount of stress due to the large amount sediment deposit from the Mississippi River that disturbs flow regimes. The Minnesota DNR has been continuing to monitor and improve water quality of rivers and streams in southern Minnesota. Iowa and New York also have put extra conservation efforts towards the gravel chub. In Iowa the gravel chub was once threatened, but now abundant all over the state. In New York there has been a strong