The sediments in the ocean consist of 3 major components: detrital, biogenic and
authigenic based on their origin. They are classified using the 30% rule, if there is more
than 30% of any type of component in the sediment it will be classified as such.
However, it must be kept in mind that there are no pure detrital, authigenic or biogenic
sediments; sediments are always mixtures of different components.