3. Sedimentary Rocks of Mechanical Origin
Conglomerate (“pudding stone”).—A rock made up from pebbles which are cemented together with sand and finer materials. The pebbles are usually worn by work of the waves upon a shore, and may vary in size from a pea to large bowlders. They may consist of almost any hard mineral or rock, though the sand about them is largely quartz.
Sandstone.—A rock composed of sand cemented together either by calcareous, siliceous, or ferruginous materials. Sandstones are described as friable when their surface grains are easily rubbed off, or as compact when they are more firmly cemented. Sandstones are often distinctly banded and are sometimes variously stained with oxide of iron. Those sandstones which have been formed upon a seacoast are known as marine sandstones, while those derived from accumulations collected by the wind in deserts are distinguished as continental deposits. Sandstones form much thicker formations than conglomerates, the latter usually constituting a basal layer only of the sandstone formation (basal conglomerate).
Shale.—A consolidated mud stone which is probably the most abundant rock formation. In large part clay admixed in varying proportions with extremely fine sandy grains.
4. Sedimentary Rocks of Chemical Precipitation
Calcareous tufa (travertine).—Not to be confused with tuff, which is a fragmental extrusive or volcanic rock. Calcareous tufa is formed when waters which contain carbonic acid gas and lime carbonate in solution, give off the gas and with it the power to hold the lime in solution. Such a liberation of the gas may occur when the stream is dashed into spray above a cascade, and the lime is then deposited about the site of the falls. Travertine is generally porous and formed of more or less concentric layers or incrustations. A remarkable illustration is furnished by the travertine deposits of Tivoli and other localities near Rome, since here the material supplies a valuable building stone.
Oölitic limestone (oolite).—This rock is made up of spherical nodules and so has the appearance of fish roe. Broken apart, each grain reveals in its center a core of siliceous sand about which carbonate of lime has been deposited in concentric layers. It is thought that waters charged with carbonate of lime, in issuing from a river near a sea beach, coat the sand grains of the latter with successive thin films of lime carbonate due to the rhythmic ebb and flow of the tides, evaporation of the adhering water taking place when the sands are exposed at low tide.
5. Sedimentary Rocks of Organic Origin
Limestone.—A generally white or gray rock composed of carbonate of lime with varying proportions of clay, silica, and other impurities. The lime carbonate is usually derived from the hard parts of marine organisms, and the argillaceous and siliceous impurities from the finer land-derived sediments which descend with them to the bottom.