Wednesday 16 March 2011

Varved Shale


Varved shale is shale deposited from melted ice in a lake in which the depositional layers appear in pairs. In simpler words, varved shale is layers of shale.
  • Varve coming from the Swedish term ‘in layers’ or ‘revolution’ and are thin, laminar structures and when seen edge on, looks like tree rings.
  • Shale is a fine grained sedimentary rock made of mud and clay.
Varved shale is made when shale is formed by melted ice in a lake where the layers appear in pairs. Each pairs represents a seasonal worth of shale deposited. This can help tell when approximately when each layer of varved shale was made.

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