Impregnation is a technique used to obtain high quality sections of soft or poorly consolidated sediments for preservation or petrographic analysis. The hardened sediment samples are also valuable for elemental and microfabric analyzes. It is also frequently beneficial to impregnate partially consolidated samples (e.g., diamicts) prior to facing and thin section preparation. The primary goal of any sediment impregnation method is to stabilize the material of interest in order to obtain undisturbed samples. Due to the range of sample characteristics and the varying needs of researchers, a large number of impregnation methods have been developed. Workers in the fields of sedimentology and soil science have made parallel developments in impregnation techniques and both fields, often in isolation, have adopted many common techniques. However, despite the wide use of impregnation techniques in sedimentology, geologists have not adopted one or more standard methods for sample preparation.

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