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Marl or Marlstone is a calcium carbonate
Calcium carbonate

Calcium carbonate is a chemical compound with the chemical formula CalciumCarbonOxygen3. It is a common substance found as Rock in all parts of the world, and is the main component of seashells, snails, and eggshells....
 or lime-rich mud or mudstone
Mudstone

Mudstone is a fine grained sedimentary rock whose original constituents were clays or muds. Particle size is up to 0.0625 mm with individual grains too small to be distinguished without a microscope....
 which contains variable amounts of clay
Clay

Clay is a naturally occurring material composed primarily of fine-grained minerals, which show plasticity through a variable range of water content, and which can be hardened when dried and/or fired....
s and aragonite
Aragonite

Aragonite is a carbonate mineral, one of the two common, naturally occurring polymorphism of calcium carbonate, calciumcarbonoxygen3....
. Marl is originally an old term loosely applied to a variety of materials, most of which occur as loose, earthy deposits consisting chiefly of an intimate mixture of clay and calcium carbonate, formed under freshwater conditions; specifically an earthy substance containing 35-65% clay and 65-35% carbonate.






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Mineraly
Marl or Marlstone is a calcium carbonate
Calcium carbonate

Calcium carbonate is a chemical compound with the chemical formula CalciumCarbonOxygen3. It is a common substance found as Rock in all parts of the world, and is the main component of seashells, snails, and eggshells....
 or lime-rich mud or mudstone
Mudstone

Mudstone is a fine grained sedimentary rock whose original constituents were clays or muds. Particle size is up to 0.0625 mm with individual grains too small to be distinguished without a microscope....
 which contains variable amounts of clay
Clay

Clay is a naturally occurring material composed primarily of fine-grained minerals, which show plasticity through a variable range of water content, and which can be hardened when dried and/or fired....
s and aragonite
Aragonite

Aragonite is a carbonate mineral, one of the two common, naturally occurring polymorphism of calcium carbonate, calciumcarbonoxygen3....
. Marl is originally an old term loosely applied to a variety of materials, most of which occur as loose, earthy deposits consisting chiefly of an intimate mixture of clay and calcium carbonate, formed under freshwater conditions; specifically an earthy substance containing 35-65% clay and 65-35% carbonate. The term is today often used to describe indurated marine deposits and lacustrine
Lacustrine

Lacustrine means "of a lake" or "relating to a lake".Specifically, it may refer to:*Lacustrine plain*Lacustrine delta...
 (lake) sediment
Sediment

Sediment is any particulate matter that can be sediment transport by fluid dynamics, and which eventually is deposited.Sediments are most often transported by water transported by wind and glaciers....
s which more accurately should be named marlstones. Marlstone is an indurated rock of about the same composition as marl, more correctly called an earthy or impure argillaceous limestone
Argillaceous minerals

Argillaceous minerals appear silvery upon optical reflection and are minerals containing substantial amounts of clay-like components . Argillaceous components are fine-grained aluminosilicates, and more particularly clay minerals such as kaolinite, montmorillonite-smectite, illite, and Chlorite group....
. It has a blocky subconchoidal fracture, and is less fissile than shale. The term marl is widely used in English-language geology, while the terms Mergel and Seekreide (German for "sea chalk") are used in European references.

The lower stratigraphic
Stratigraphy

Stratigraphy, a branch of geology, studies rock layers and layering . It is primarily used in the study of sedimentary rock and layered volcanic rocks....
 units of the chalk
Chalk

Chalk is a soft, white, porous sedimentary rock, a form of limestone composed of the mineral calcite. It forms under relatively deep marine conditions from the gradual accumulation of minute calcite plates shed from micro-organisms called coccolithophores....
 cliffs of Dover
White cliffs of Dover

The white cliffs of Dover are cliffs which form part of the Great Britain coastline facing the Strait of Dover and France. The cliffs are part of the North Downs formation....
 consist of a sequence of glauconitic
Glauconite

Glauconite is a Silicate minerals mineral.It can also be referred to as an iron silicate. It crystallizes with monoclinic geometry. The name is derived from the Greek language glaucos meaning 'gleaming' or 'silvery', to describe the appearance of the blue-green color, presumably relating to the sheen and blue-green color of the sea's...
 marls followed by rhythmically-banded limestone
Limestone

File:Limestone Formation In Waitomo.jpgLimestone is a sedimentary rock composed largely of the mineral calcite . The deposition of limestone strata is often a by-product and indicator of biological activity in the geology record....
 and marl layers. Similar upper Cretaceous
Cretaceous

The Cretaceous , usually abbreviated K for its German translation Kreide, is a geologic period from circa to million years ago . In the geologic timescale, the Cretaceous follows on the Jurassic period and is followed by the Paleogene period....
 cyclic sequences in Germany
Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered to the north by the North Sea, Denmark, and the Baltic Sea; to the east by Poland and the Czech Republic; to the south by Austria and Switzerland; and to the west by France, Luxembourg, Belgium, and the Netherlands....
 have been correlated with Milankovitch orbital forcing.

Marl as lacustrine sediment is common in post-glacial lake
Glacial lake

A glacial lake is a lake with origins in a melted glacier.Glacial lakes can be green as a result of pulverized minerals that support a large population of algae....
 bed sediments, often found underlying peat bogs. It has been utilized as a soil conditioner and acid soil neutralizing agent. It is a soft, loose, earthy material that consists of varying amounts of calcium carbonate, clay, and silt size material and is formed primarily in freshwater conditions (Hubbard and Herman, 1990).

Sometimes ground-up marl is applied to farmland as a form of lime.

See also

  • Agricultural lime
    Agricultural lime

    Agricultural lime, also called garden lime or liming , is a soil additive made from pulverized limestone or chalk. The primary active component is calcium carbonate....