Gravel is rock that is of a specific particle size Particle size or grain size refers to the diameter of a grain of granular material, such as sediment or the lithified particles in clastic rock. Granular material can range from very small colloidal particles, through clay, silt, sand, and gravel, to boulders range. Specifically, it is any loose rock In geology, rock is a naturally occurring solid aggregate of minerals and/or mineraloids that is larger than 2 mm (0.079 in) in its smallest dimension (about 1/12 of an inch) and no more than 64 mm The millimetre is a unit of length in the metric system, equal to one thousandth of a metre, which is the SI base unit of length (2.5 in An inch is the name of a unit of length in a number of different systems, including Imperial units, and United States customary units. There are 36 inches in a yard and 12 inches in a foot. A corresponding unit of area is the square inch and a corresponding unit of volume is the cubic inch. The inch is usually the universal unit of measurement in). The next smaller size class in geology is sand Sand is a naturally occurring granular material composed of finely divided rock and mineral particles, which is >0.0625 to 2 mm (0.0025 to 0.0787 in) in size. The next larger size is cobble, which is >64 to 256 mm (2.5 to 10.1 in). Gravel can be sub-categorized into granule (>2 to 4 mm/0.079 to 0.16 in) and pebble A pebble is a clast of rock with a particle size of 4 to 64 millimetres based on the Krumbein phi scale of sedimentology. Pebbles are generally considered to be larger than granules and smaller than cobbles (64 to 256 millimetres diameter). A rock made predominantly of pebbles is termed a conglomerate. Pebble tools are among the earliest known man- (>4 to 64 mm/0.16 to 2.5 in). One cubic yard of gravel typically weighs about 3000 pounds (or a cubic meter is about 1,800 kilograms).
Gravel is an important commercial product, with a number of applications. Many roadways A road is an identifiable thoroughfare, route, way or path between two places which may or may not be available for use by the public; public roads, especially major roads connecting significant destinations are termed highways. Modern roads are normally smoothed, paved, or otherwise prepared to allow easy travel although historically many roads are surfaced Road surface or pavement (American English) is the durable surface material laid down on an area intended to sustain traffic (vehicular or foot traffic). Such surfaces are frequently marked to guide traffic. The most common modern paving methods are asphalt and concrete. In the past, brick was extensively used, as was metalling. Today, permeable with gravel, especially in rural Rural areas are large and isolated areas of an open country , often with low population density. The terms "countryside" and "rural areas" are not synonyms: a "countryside" refers to rural areas that are open. A forest, wetlands, etc. with a low population density is not a countryside areas where there is little traffic Traffic on roads may consist of pedestrians, ridden or herded animals, vehicles, streetcars and other conveyances, either singly or together, while using the public way for purposes of travel. Traffic laws are the laws which govern traffic and regulate vehicles, while rules of the road are both the laws and the informal rules that may have. Globally, far more roads are surfaced with gravel than with concrete Concrete is a construction material composed of cement and other cementitious materials such as fly ash and slag cement, aggregate (generally a coarse aggregate made of gravels or crushed rocks such as limestone, or granite, plus a fine aggregate such as sand), water, and chemical admixtures or tarmac Tarmac is a type of road surface. Tarmac refers to a material patented by Edgar Purnell Hooley in 1901. The term is also used, with varying degrees of correctness, for a variety of other materials, including tar-grouted macadam, Tarvia, bituminous surface treatments and even modern asphalt concrete; Russia Russia (pronounced /ˈrʌʃə/ ; Russian: Россия, tr. Rossiya, pronounced [rɐˈsʲijə] ( listen)), also officially known as the Russian Federation (Russian: Российская Федерация, tr. Rossiyskaya Federatsiya, pronounced [rɐˈsʲijskəjə fʲɪdʲɪˈraʦəjə] ( listen)), is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal alone has over 400,000 km (250,000 mi) of gravel-surfaced roads. Both sand and small gravel are also important for the manufacture of concrete Concrete is a construction material composed of cement and other cementitious materials such as fly ash and slag cement, aggregate (generally a coarse aggregate made of gravels or crushed rocks such as limestone, or granite, plus a fine aggregate such as sand), water, and chemical admixtures.
Contents |
Geological formation
Large gravel deposits are a common geological feature, being formed as a result of the weathering Weathering is the breaking down of Earth's rocks, soils and minerals through direct contact with the planet's atmosphere. Weathering occurs in situ, or "with no movement", and thus should not be confused with erosion, which involves the movement of rocks and minerals by agents such as water, ice, wind, and gravity and erosion Erosion is the process of weathering and transport of solids in the natural environment or their source and deposits them elsewhere. It usually occurs due to transport by wind, water, or ice; by down-slope creep of soil and other material under the force of gravity; or by living organisms, such as burrowing animals, in the case of bioerosion of rocks. The action of rivers and waves tends to pile up gravel in large accumulations. This can sometimes result in gravel becoming compacted and concreted into the sedimentary rock called conglomerate A conglomerate is a rock consisting of individual clasts within a finer-grained matrix that have become cemented together. Conglomerates are sedimentary rocks consisting of rounded fragments and are thus differentiated from breccias, which consist of angular clasts. Both conglomerates and breccias are characterized by clasts larger than sand (>2. Where natural gravel deposits are insufficient for human purposes, gravel is often produced by quarrying and crushing hard-wearing rocks, such as sandstone, limestone, or basalt. Quarries where gravel is extracted are known as gravel pits. Southern England The area now called England has been settled by people of various cultures for about 35,000 years, but it takes its name from the Angles, one of the Germanic tribes who settled during the 5th and 6th centuries. England became a unified state in AD 927, and since the Age of Discovery, which began during the 15th century, has had a significant possesses particularly large concentrations of them due to the widespread deposition of gravel in the region during the Ice Ages An "ice age" or, more precisely, "glacial age" is a generic geological period of long-term reduction in the temperature of the Earth's surface and atmosphere, resulting in an expansion of continental ice sheets, polar ice sheets and alpine glaciers. Within a long-term ice age, individual pulses of extra cold climate are termed &.
Modern production
As of 2006, the United States ^ b. English is the de facto language of American government and the sole language spoken at home by 80% of Americans age five and older. Spanish is the second most commonly spoken language is the world's leading producer and consumer of gravel.[1][2]
Etymology
The word comes from the French French is a Romance language spoken as a first language by about 136 million people worldwide. Around 190 million people speak French as a second language, and an additional 200 million speak it as an acquired foreign language. French speaking communities are present in 57 countries and territories. Most native speakers of the language live in gravelle, meaning 'coarse sand'.
Types
Gravel with stones sized roughly between 5 and 15 millimeter. Disused gravel pit in Lower Saxony Lower Saxony lies in north-western Germany and is second in area and fourth in population among the sixteen federal-states of Germany. In rural areas Low German is still spoken, but the number of speakers is declining, Germany A region named Germania, inhabited by several Germanic peoples, has been known and documented before AD 100. Beginning in the 10th century, German territories formed a central part of the Holy Roman Empire, which lasted until 1806. During the 16th century, northern Germany became the centre of the Protestant Reformation. As a modern nation-state,Multiple types of gravel have been recognized, including:
- Bank gravel: gravel intermixed with sand or clay.
- Bench gravel: a bed of gravel located on the side of a valley above the present stream bottom, indicating the former location of the stream bed when it was at a higher level.
- Creek rock: this is generally rounded, semi-polished stones, potentially of a wide range of types, that are dredged or scooped from river A river is a natural watercourse, usually freshwater, flowing toward an ocean, a lake, a sea, or another river. In a few cases, a river simply flows into the ground or dries up completely before reaching another body of water. Small rivers may also be called by several other names, including stream, creek, brook, rivulet, and rill; there is no beds and creek beds. It is also often used as concrete aggregate and less often as a paving surface.
- Crushed rock: rock In geology, rock is a naturally occurring solid aggregate of minerals and/or mineraloids that is mechanically broken into small pieces then sorted by filtering through different size mesh Mesh consists of semi-permeable barrier made of connected strands of metal, fiber, or other flexible/ductile material. Mesh is similar to web or net in that it has many attached or woven strands.
- Crushed stone: this is generally limestone Limestone is a sedimentary rock composed largely of the mineral calcite . Like most other sedimentary rocks, limestones are composed of grains; however, most grains in limestone grains are skeletal fragments of marine organisms such as coral or foraminifera. Other carbonate grains comprising limestones are ooids, peloids, intraclasts, and or dolomite Dolomite is the name of a sedimentary carbonate rock and a mineral, both composed of calcium magnesium carbonate Ca that has been crushed and graded by screens to certain size classes. It is widely used in concrete Concrete is a construction material composed of cement and other cementitious materials such as fly ash and slag cement, aggregate (generally a coarse aggregate made of gravels or crushed rocks such as limestone, or granite, plus a fine aggregate such as sand), water, and chemical admixtures and as a surfacing for roads and driveways, sometimes with tar Tar is modified pitch produced primarily from the wood and roots of pine by destructive distillation under pyrolysis. Production and trade in tar was a major contributor in the economies of Northern Europe and Colonial America. Its main use was in preserving wooden vessels against rot. The largest user was the Royal Navy. Demand for tar declined applied over it. Crushed stone may also be made from granite Granite is a common and widely occurring type of intrusive, felsic, igneous rock. Granites usually have a medium to coarse grained texture. Occasionally some individual crystals (phenocrysts) are larger than the groundmass in which case the texture is known as porphyritic. A granitic rock with a porphyritic texture is sometimes known as a porphyry and other rocks. A special type of limestone crushed stone is dense grade aggregate, or DGA, also known as crusher run. This is a mixed grade of mostly small crushed stone in a matrix of crushed limestone powder.
- Fine gravel: gravel consisting of particles with a diameter of 2 to 4 mm.
- Lag gravel: a surface accumulation of coarse gravel produced by the removal of finer particles.
- Pay gravel: also known as "pay dirt"; a nickname for gravel with a high concentration of gold and other precious metals. The metals are recovered through gold panning.
- Pea gravel: gravel that consists of small, rounded stones used in concrete surfaces. Also used for walkways, driveways and as a substrate in home aquariums.
- Piedmont gravel: a coarse gravel carried down from high places by mountain streams and deposited on relatively flat ground, where the water runs more slowly.
- Plateau gravel: a layer of gravel on a plateau or other region above the height at which stream-terrace gravel is usually found.
- River run gravel: naturally deposited gravel found in and next to rivers and streams.
See also
- Sediment Sediment is naturally-occurring material that is broken down by processes of weathering and erosion, and is subsequently transported by the action of fluids such as wind, water, or ice, and/or by the force of gravity acting on the particle itself
- Construction aggregate Construction aggregate, or simply "aggregate", is a broad category of coarse particulate material used in construction, including sand, gravel, crushed stone, slag, recycled concrete and geosynthetic aggregates. Aggregates are a component of composite materials such as concrete and asphalt concrete; the aggregate serves as reinforcement
- Clay Clay is a naturally occurring material composed primarily of fine-grained minerals. Clay deposits are mostly composed of clay minerals, a subtype of phyllosilicate minerals, which impart plasticity and harden when fired or dried; they also may contain variable amounts of water trapped in the mineral structure by polar attraction. Organic materials
- Silt Silt is granular material of a grain size between sand and clay derived from soil or rock. Silt may occur as a soil or as suspended sediment in a surface water body. It may also exist as soil deposited at the bottom of a water body
- Sand Sand is a naturally occurring granular material composed of finely divided rock and mineral particles
- Pebble A pebble is a clast of rock with a particle size of 4 to 64 millimetres based on the Krumbein phi scale of sedimentology. Pebbles are generally considered to be larger than granules and smaller than cobbles (64 to 256 millimetres diameter). A rock made predominantly of pebbles is termed a conglomerate. Pebble tools are among the earliest known man-
- Cobble
- Boulder In geology, a boulder is a rock with grain size of usually no less than 256 mm diameter.[citation needed] While a boulder may be small enough to move or roll manually, others are extremely massive. In common usage, a boulder is too large for a person to move. Smaller boulders are usually just called rocks or stones. The word boulder comes from
References
- ^ Mineral Commodity Summaries 2006 2009
- ^ Industrial Sand And Gravel (Silica): World Production, By Country 2009
Categories: Sedimentology | Granular materials | Pavements | Gardening aids | Building supply | Stone
Personal tools
- New features
- Log in / create account
Namespaces
- Article
- Discussion
Variants
Views
- Read
- Edit
- View history
Actions
Navigation
- Main page
- Contents
- Featured content
- Current events
- Random article
Interaction
- About Wikipedia
- Community portal
- Recent changes
- Contact Wikipedia
- Donate to Wikipedia
- Help
Toolbox
- What links here
- Related changes
- Upload file
- Special pages
- Permanent link
- Cite this page
Print/export
- Create a book
- Download as PDF
- Printable version
Languages
- العربية
- Беларуская
- Български
- Català
- Česky
- Dansk
- Deutsch
- Eesti
- Español
- Esperanto
- Euskara
- فارسی
- Français
- Gaeilge
- Galego
- Ido
- Bahasa Indonesia
- Italiano
- עברית
- Kiswahili
- Lietuvių
- Lumbaart
- मराठी
- Bahasa Melayu
- Nederlands
- 日本語
- Norsk (bokmål)
- Norsk (nynorsk)
- Polski
- Português
- Română
- Русский
- Sicilianu
- Slovenčina
- Српски / Srpski
- Suomi
- Svenska
- ไทย
- Українська
- Vèneto
- Žemaitėška