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
Silt out zero visibility. Always using guidelines during penetration dives is an important safety measure as it helps divers find their way out. Surface supplied divers are generally at less risk from silt out as they are connected to the surface by an umbilical and can not get lost, but they may become disorientated, and unable to work effectively. It is also more likely for them to have an umbilical snag in bad visibility, and if assistance is required from the stand-by diver, this is more difficult in a silt out. A severe silt out will make the video cameras on a