Shale

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Shale

Shale is a fine-grained sedimentary rock

Sedimentary rock

Sedimentary rock is one of the three main Rock types . Sedimentary rock is formed by deposition and consolidation of mineral and organic material and from precipitation of minerals from solution....
whose original constituents were clay minerals or mud

MUD

In Online game, a MUD , pronounced /m?d/, is a multi-user real-time virtual world described entirely in text. It combines elements of role-playing games, hack and slash, interactive fiction, and online chat....
s. It is characterized by thin laminae breaking with an irregular curving fracture, often splintery and usually parallel to the often-indistinguishable bedding plane. This property is called fissility

Fissility (geology)

Fissility refers to the property of mudstones to split along layers, more or less parallel to the plane of bedding, thus becoming described as shales....
.

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Encyclopedia

Shale is a fine-grained sedimentary rock

Sedimentary rock

MUD

Fissility (geology)

Fissility refers to the property of mudstones to split along layers, more or less parallel to the plane of bedding, thus becoming described as shales....
. Non-fissile rocks

Rock (geology)

In geology, rock is a naturally occurring solid aggregate of minerals and/or mineraloids.The Earth's outer solid layer, the lithosphere, is made of rock....
of similar composition but made of particles smaller than 1/16 mm are described as 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....
s. Rocks with similar particle sizes but with less clay and therefore grittier are siltstone

Siltstone

Siltstone is a sedimentary rock which has a composition intermediate in Particle size between the coarser sandstones and the finer mudstones and shales....
s. Shale is the most common sedimentary rock.

Formation

The process in the rock cycle

Rock cycle

The rock cycle is a fundamental concept in geology that describes the dynamic transitions through geologic time among the three main rock types: sedimentary, metamorphic rock, and igneous....
which forms shale is compaction

Compaction (geology)

gay ASS HOMOS...
. The fine particles that compose shale can remain in water long after the larger and denser particles of sand have deposited. Shales are typically deposited in very slow moving water and are often found in lake and lagoon

Lagoon

A lagoon is a body of comparatively shallow sea water or brackish water separated from the deeper sea by a shallow or exposed Bar , reef, or similar feature....
al deposits, in river delta

River delta

A delta is a landform that is created at the mouth of a river where that river flows into an ocean, sea, estuary, lake, reservoir, flat arid area, or another river....
s, on floodplain

Floodplain

||-||-||-||-||-||-||-||}A floodplain, or flood plain, is flat or nearly flat land adjacent to a stream or river that experiences occasional or periodic flooding....
s and offshore of beach sands. They can also be deposited on the continental shelf

Continental shelf

The continental shelf is the extended perimeter of each continent and associated coastal plain, and was part of the continent during the glacial periods, but is undersea during Ice age such as the current epoch by relatively shallow seas and Bay....
, in relatively deep, quiet water.

'Black shales' are dark, as a result of being especially rich in unoxidized carbon

Carbon

Carbon is a chemical element with chemical symbol C and atomic number 6. As a member of group 14 on the periodic table, it is nonmetallic and tetravalence?making four electrons available to form covalent bond chemical bonds....
. Common in some Paleozoic

Paleozoic

The Paleozoic or Palaeozoic Era is the earliest of three geology Era of the Phanerozoic Eon . The Paleozoic spanned from roughly , and is subdivided into six period ; from oldest to youngest they are: the Cambrian, Ordovician, Silurian, Devonian period, Carboniferous, and Permian...
and Mesozoic

Mesozoic

The Mesozoic Era is one of three Geologic time scale of the Phanerozoic eon . The division of time into eras dates back to Giovanni Arduino, in the 18th century, although his original name for the era now called the 'Mesozoic' was 'Secondary' ....
strata

Stratum

In geology and related fields, a stratum is a layer of rock or soil with internally consistent characteristics that distinguishes it from contiguous layers....
, black shales were deposited in anoxic

Anoxia

The term anoxia means a total decrease in the level of oxygen, an extreme form of hypoxia or "low oxygen". The terms anoxia and hypoxia are used in various contexts:...
, reducing

Redox

Redox describes all chemical reactions in which atoms have their oxidation number changed.This can be either a simple redox process such as the oxidation of carbon to yield carbon dioxide or the reduction of carbon by hydrogen to yield methane , or it can be a complex process such as the oxidation of sugar in the human body through a ser...
environments, such as in stagnant water columns.

Fossil

Fossil

Fossils are the preserved remains or trace fossil of animals, plants, and other organisms from the remote past. The totality of fossils, both discovered and undiscovered, and their placement in fossiliferous Rock formations and sedimentary rock layers is known as the fossil record....
s, animal tracks/burrows and even raindrop impact craters are sometimes preserved on shale bedding surfaces. Shales may also contain concretion

Concretion

A concretion is a volume of sedimentary rock in which a mineral cement fills the porosity . Concretions are often ovoid or spherical in shape, although irregular shapes also occur....
s.

Shales that are subject to heat and pressure alter into a hard, fissile, metamorphic rock

Metamorphic rock

Metamorphic rock is the result of the transformation of an existing rock type, the protolith, in a process called metamorphism, which means "change in form"....
known as slate

Slate

Slate is a fine-grained, foliation , homogeneous metamorphic rock derived from an original shale-type sedimentary rock composed of clay or volcano ash through low grade regional metamorphism....
, which is often used in building construction.

Shale

Formation

See also

Footnotes