- Industry: Mining
- Number of terms: 33118
- Number of blossaries: 0
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The U.S. Bureau of Mines (USBM) was the primary United States Government agency conducting scientific research and disseminating information on the extraction, processing, use, and conservation of mineral resources.
Founded on May 16, 1910, through the Organic Act (Public Law 179), USBM's missions ...
An old rock name that has been variously defined but is now generally applied to a dark gray, firmly indurated, coarse-grained sandstone that consists of poorly sorted, angular to subangular grains of quartz and feldspar, with a variety of dark rock and mineral fragments embedded in a compact clayey matrix having the general composition of slate and containing an abundance of very fine-grained illite, sericite, and chloritic minerals. Graywacke is abundant within the sedimentary section, esp. in the older strata, usually occurring as thick, extensive bodies with sole marks of various kinds and exhibiting massive or obscure stratification in the thicker units but marked graded bedding in the thinner layers. It generally reflects an environment in which erosion, transportation, deposition, and burial were so rapid that complete chemical weathering did not occur, as in an orogenic belt where sediments derived from recently elevated source areas were poured into a geosyncline. Graywackes are typically interbedded with marine shales or slates, and associated with submarine lava flows and bedded cherts; they are generally of marine origin and are believed to have been deposited by submarine turbidity currents. Compare: arkose; subgraywacke. Also spelled: greywacke; grauwacke.
Industry:Mining
An old Swedish mining term for silicate gangue (amphibole, pyroxene, garnet, etc.) of certain iron ore and sulfide deposits of Archean age, particularly those that have replaced limestone and dolomite. Its meaning has been generally expanded to include limebearing silicates, of any geologic age, derived from nearly pure limestone and dolomite with the introduction of large amounts of Si, Al, Fe, and Mg. In American usage, the term is more or less synonymous with tactite.
Industry:Mining
An old term for an alkali soil whose sodium tends to disperse organic matter and give a black color. Compare: white alkali
Industry:Mining
An older term for accumulation of salts with high levels of sodium that may develop as a crust. Compare: black alkali
Industry:Mining
