SHALE

Shale

Shale is a fine-grained, clastic sedimentary rock composed of mud that is a mix of flakes of clay minerals and tiny fragments of other minerals, especially quartz and calcite. The ratio of clay to other minerals is variable. Shale is characterized by breaks along thin laminae or parallel layering or bedding less than one centimeter in thickness, called fissility. Mudstones, on the other hand, are similar in composition but do not show the fissility.

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shale

Noun

  1. A shell or husk; a cod or pod.
  2. A fine-grained sedimentary rock of a thin, laminated, and often friable, structure.

Verb

  1. To take off the shell or coat of.


The above text is a snippet from Wiktionary: shale
and as such is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

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