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Old Red Sandstone

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Old Red Sandstone

[′ōld ′red ′san‚stōn]
(geology)
A Devonian formation in Great Britain and northwestern Europe, of nonmarine, predominantly red sedimentary rocks, consisting principally of sandstone, conglomerates, and shales.
McGraw-Hill Dictionary of Scientific & Technical Terms, 6E, Copyright © 2003 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
The following article is from The Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1979). It might be outdated or ideologically biased.

Old Red Sandstone

 

deposits from the Devonian period (British Isles, northwest parts of the USSR, and other places) consisting of micaceous red and gray sandstone and slate. Frequently found in Old Red sandstone are the remains of fish of the generaCoccosteus, Dipterus, and Holoptychius as well as large anthropods of the genus Eurypterus and specific pelecypods. It is believed that Old Red sandstone is continental and, in part, lagoonal deposits. The lagoons at times were joined with the open sea. The disintegration of the Caledonian mountain system, which had arisen shortly before, aided the accumulation of thick beds of Old Red sandstone.

The Great Soviet Encyclopedia, 3rd Edition (1970-1979). © 2010 The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved.
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References in periodicals archive
On fossil fishes of the Old Red Sandstone of Caithness and Sutherland, with notices of some new to those counties.
Silurian and Devonian spore zones of the Old Red Sandstone continent and adjacent regions.
He said, 'The Old Red Sandstone was well known for preserving the fossils of the fish, but the fish trails and their significance have never been recorded before.'
This will be particularly so when the top soil is composed largely of clay produced by the chemical weathering of the underlying rock strata which in large parts of South Wales is Old Red Sandstone. But all is not lost.
This is the one hour of the year I can move around the promontory, down the old red sandstone bulwark to the limestone karst, that landsker where geology's language changes, down to the crevices and gwlis and overhung beaches that are usually no-gos, exclusive as some Mediterranean enclave, whitewalled, camera-scanned.
Other herbs like purple saxifrage reach the southernmost edge of their range in Britain on Powys's old red sandstone cliffs.
Much of the rural Welsh landscape is characterised by its traditional stone field boundaries, with Old Red Sandstone walls in the Brecon Beacons and the Black Mountains, Carboniferous limestone and Millstone Grit in the Valleys and limestone and slate in West and North Wales.
'The old red sandstone buildings of the Prya site, constructed 100 years ago with a craftsmanship which will last another 100 years, were formerly the site of a rural hospital.
As a member of the Grasshopper group of farmers, Stephen aims to exploit the quality of the old red sandstone, lowland peat and alluvial silt and clay to achieve maximum returns from grassland forage and reduce production costs.
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