Detrital - composed of erosional fragments of other rocks

There are three aspects to the detrital texture.  Size, sorting, and shape of mineral grains



coarse grained  - individual grains are greater than 2mm in grain size

Angular grains - the rock name is breccia

Breccia.jpg (9440 bytes)

Round Grains - the rock name is conglomerate

 

Congl~16.jpg (6924 bytes)



Medium size grains between 2mm and 1/16 mm in grain size. These are sand size grains and the rock is called  sandstone.

We can go further.....

The mineral grains are pure quartz - the rock name is quartz sandstone

Sands~78.jpg (8266 bytes)

the mineral grains are quartz and feldspar  the rock name is arkose.

Arkose.jpg (8727 bytes)

The rock is composed of quartz and rock fragments - the rock name is graywacke.

Grayw~30.jpg (7558 bytes)



Fine grains - individual grains are less tha 1/16mm in grain size.

The rocks are collectively called shale.

Blacksh.jpg (6246 bytes)Black shale with plant fossils. Redshale.jpg (7173 bytes)Red Shale