Clastic rock

Clastic rocks are composed of fragments, or clasts, of pre-existing minerals and rock. A clast is a fragment of geological detritus, chunks, and smaller grains of rock broken off other rocks by physical weathering. Geologists use the term clastic to refer to sedimentary rocks and particles in sediment transport, whether in suspension or as bed load, and in sediment deposits.
Clastic sedimentary rocks are rocks composed predominantly of broken pieces or clasts of older weathered and eroded rocks. Clastic sediments or sedimentary rocks are classified based on grain size, clast and cementing material (matrix) composition, and texture. The classification factors are often useful in determining a sample's environment of deposition. An example of clastic environment would be a river system in which the full range of grains being transported by the moving water consist of pieces eroded from solid rock upstream.
Grain size varies from clay in shales and claystones; through silt in siltstones; sand in sandstones; and gravel, cobble, to boulder sized fragments in conglomerates and breccias.
Conglomerates and breccias
Conglomerates are coarse grained rocks dominantly composed of gravel sized particles that are typically held together by a finer grained matrix. These rocks are often subdivided into conglomerates and breccias. The major characteristic that divides these two categories is the amount of rounding. The gravel sized particles that make up conglomerates are well rounded while in breccias they are angular. Conglomerates are common in stratigraphic successions of most, if not all, ages but only make up one percent or less, by weight, of the total sedimentary rock mass. In terms of origin and depositional mechanisms they are very similar to sandstones. As a result, the two categories often contain the same sedimentary structures.
Conglomerate
Conglomerate is a sedimentary rock made up of rounded gravel-sized pieces of rock surrounded by finer-grained sediments (such as sand, silt, or clay). The larger fragments within conglomerate are called clasts, while the finer sediment surrounding the clasts is called the matrix. The clasts and matrix are typically cemented by calcium carbonate, iron oxide, silica, or hardened clay.
Conglomerates form when rounded gravels deposited by water or glaciers become solidified and cemented by pressure over time. They can be found in sedimentary rock sequences of all ages but probably make up less than 1 percent by weight of all sedimentary rocks. They are closely related to sandstones in origin, and exhibit many of the same types of sedimentary structures, such as tabular and trough cross-bedding and graded bedding.
Breccia
The term breach, originating from the French “brèche”, has its origins in the German “Breccie” (or “Brekzie”), based on the verb “brechen”, from, to fender, to break. “Breccia” is the name of the professional jargon of Italian marble workers, which means broken stone. A breccia may have a variety of different origins, as indicated by the named types including sedimentary breccia, fault or tectonic breccia, igneous breccia, impact breccia, and hydrothermal breccia.
Breccia is composed of coarse rock fragments held together by cement or a fine-grained matrix. Like conglomerate, breccia contains at least 30 percent of gravel-sized particles (particles over 2mm in size), but it is distinguished from conglomerate because the rock fragments have sharp edges that have not been worn down. These indicate that the gravel was deposited very close to its source area, since otherwise the edges would have been rounded during transport. Most of the rounding of rock fragments takes place within the first few kilometers of transport, though complete rounding of pebbles of very hard rock may take up to 300 kilometers (190 mi) of river transport.
A megabreccia is a breccia containing very large rock fragments, from at least a meter in size to greater than 400 meters. In some cases, the clasts are so large that the brecciated nature of the rock is not obvious. Megabreccias can be formed by landslides, impact events, or caldera collapse.
References:
wikipedia
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