This topic was discussed in the differentiation module, where in particular we were concerned with the rate of deposition. Here's the picture again to illustrate the physical problem. Imagine that we know the rate of deposition of the sediment and wish to predict the change in sediment thickness over an extended period of time. But the assumption that the rate of deposition is constant is unlikely to hold in reality, so the accumulation of sediment on the bottom will vary accordingly. In order to predict the thickness of the sediment, if we know the rate of deposition, we need to use the mathematical operation called integration.
Integration is the inverse process to differentiation.
With integration you go the opposite way - you are starting with a function representing the rate of change, and you are interested in determining the cumulative change, for example the cumulative increase in sediment thickness over a number of years. To find out what integration means and how to do it, we'll go to the MathHelp notebook on integration . At the end we can return to this particular problem and use integration in a specific sedimentation question.