black mud

[¦blak ′məd]

(geology)

A mud formed where there is poor circulation or weak tides, such as in lagoons, sounds, or bays; the color is due to iron sulfides and organic matter.

References in classic literature ?

And then the crocodile would grunt up at them from the black mud of the river,

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If you once got stuck in that black mud you'd be sucked right down and never seen or heard tell of again till the day of judgment, like Adam Palmer's cow.

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We had a pair of very strong horses, but travelled at the rate of little more than a couple of miles an hour, through one unbroken slough of black mud and water.

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Beneath that black mud, bubbled the hot springs of Bath.

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They were attracted by this idea; so it was not long before they were stripped, and striped from head to heel with black mud, like so many zebras -- all of them chiefs, of course -- and then they went tearing through the woods to attack an English settlement.

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In process of time, the rains wash off all the turf and grass aforesaid, move the logs hither and thither, in picturesque positions, up, down and crosswise, with divers chasms and ruts of black mud intervening.

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I saw a low hut above the black mud, and a small canoe hauled up.

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When Saint Antoine had again enfolded the Defarges in his dusky wings, and they, having finally alighted near the Saint's boundaries, were picking their way on foot through the black mud and offal of his streets, Madame Defarge spoke to her husband:

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The doctor and the commandant looked everywhere about them; Gondrin's soldier's coat lay there beside a heap of black mud, and his wheelbarrow, spade, and pickaxe were visible, but there was no sign of the man himself along the various pebbly watercourses, for the wayward mountain streams had hollowed out channels that were almost overgrown with low bushes.

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It was a scattered village of shabby little cottages, with a main street that was a wallow of black mud from the last late spring rain.

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The dreary opposite houses were all shut up; the black mud was inches deep in the roadway; the soot, floating in tiny black particles, mixed with the falling rain, and heightened the dirty obscurity of the rising mist.

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The annual "Bloco da Lama," or "Mud Party," in this coastal town about a four-hour drive from Rio de Janeiro got started when Alesandra Cristiana was the first person to jump into thick black mud in an area of mangroves the size of several soccer fields.