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Any unique combination of chemical composition, mineralogy, grain size, texture, or other distinguishing characteristics can describe a rock type. Additionally, different classification systems exist for each major type of rock. [1] There are three major types of rock: igneous rock, metamorphic rock, and sedimentary rock.
Most rocks contain silicate minerals, compounds that include silica tetrahedra in their crystal lattice, and account for about one-third of all known mineral species and about 95% of the earth's crust. [6] The proportion of silica in rocks and minerals is a major factor in determining their names and properties. [7]
In geology, a bed is a layer of sediment, sedimentary rock, or volcanic rock "bounded above and below by more or less well-defined bedding surfaces". [1] A bedding surface or bedding plane is respectively a curved surface or plane that visibly separates each successive bed (of the same or different lithology ) from the preceding or following bed.
A large area of exposed Precambrian crystalline igneous and high-grade metamorphic rocks that form tectonically stable areas. shingle beach A beach which is armoured with pebbles or small- to medium-sized cobbles (as opposed to fine sand), typically ranging from 2 to 200 millimetres (0.1 to 7.9 in) diameter. silcrete
The term shield, used to describe this type of geographic region, appears in the 1901 English translation of Eduard Suess's Face of Earth by H. B. C. Sollas, and comes from the shape "not unlike a flat shield" [2] of the Canadian Shield which has an outline that "suggests the shape of the shields carried by soldiers in the days of hand-to-hand ...
Tuff is a type of rock made of volcanic ash ejected from a vent during a volcanic eruption. Following ejection and deposition, the ash is lithified into a solid rock. [1] [2] Rock that contains greater than 75% ash is considered tuff, while rock containing 25% to 75% ash is described as tuffaceous (for example, tuffaceous sandstone). [3]
An angular unconformity is an unconformity where horizontally parallel strata of sedimentary rock are deposited on tilted and eroded layers, producing an angular discordance with the overlying horizontal layers. [6] The whole sequence may later be deformed and tilted by further orogenic activity. A typical case history is presented by the ...
The aim of sedimentology, studying sediments, is to derive information on the depositional conditions which acted to deposit the rock unit, and the relation of the individual rock units in a basin into a coherent understanding of the evolution of the sedimentary sequences and basins, and thus, the Earth's geological history as a whole.