Cementation

Have you ever tried to make a sandcastle at the beach, only for it to fall apart because the sand was too dry? Just like how adding a little water helps bind the sand grains together to form a stable structure, cementation in geology involves minerals precipitating from water and binding sediment grains into solid rock. In this analogy, the water acts as the minerals in geological cementation, and just as the wet sand forms a sturdy sandcastle, the mineral-laden water solidifies loose sediment into rock.