cementation

The modification of the surface layer of a metal by heating it in a packing of some substance which will diffuse into it. This was the oldest method of making steel: heating iron packed in charcoal.

In geology, cementation is the process of deposition of dissolved mineral components in the interstices of sediments.

Cementation is also continually going on in the groundwater zone, so much so that the term "zone of cementation" is sometimes used interchangeably. Cementation occurs in fissures or other openings of existing rocks and is a dynamic process more or less in equilibrium with a dissolution or dissolving process.

In metallurgy, cementation is the process by which one substance is caused to penetrate and change the character of another by the action of heat below the melting points of the substances.