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concretion

   Also found in: Dictionary/thesaurus, Medical, Legal, Wikipedia, Hutchinson 0.04 sec.
concretion, mass or nodule of mineral matter, usually oval or nearly spherical in shape, and occurring in sedimentary rock. It is formed by the accumulation of mineral matter in the pore spaces of the sediment, usually around a fossil or fossil fragment acting as a nucleus. Most concretions are very dense and compact, and are usually composed of calcite, silica, or iron oxide. The material making up the concretion is believed to come from the surrounding rock, being redeposited around the nucleus. Concretions range in diameter from a fraction of an inch to many feet, although most are but a few inches in diameter. Perhaps the best known are the flint nodules found in chalk deposits such as those at Dover, England. Concretions having radiating cracks filled with mineral matter are called turtle stones, or septaria.
concretion
1. any of various rounded or irregular mineral masses formed by chemical precipitation around a nucleus, such as a bone or shell, that is different in composition from the sedimentary rock that surrounds it
2. Pathol another word for calculus

concretion [kän′krē·shən]
(geology)
A hard, compact mass of mineral matter in the pores of sedimentary or fragmental volcanic rock; represents a concentration of a minor constituent of the enclosing rock or of cementing material.


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There, in three or four fathoms of water, between the reefs of Pacou and Vanou, lay anchors, cannons, pigs of lead and iron, embedded in the limy concretions.
Troubles and other realities took on themselves a meta-physical impalpability, sinking to mere mental phenomena for serene contemplation, and no longer stood as pressing concretions which chafed body and soul.
We here see at the bottom of the cliffs, beds containing sharks' teeth and sea-shells of extinct species, passing above into an indurated marl, and from that into the red clayey earth of the Pampas, with its calcareous concretions and the bones of terrestrial quadrupeds.
 
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