OR/13/013 Glossary
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| Green, S, Campbell, E, Bide, T P, Balson, P S, Mankelow, J M, Shaw, R A, and Walters, W S. 2013. The mineral resources of Scottish waters and the Central North Sea. British Geological Survey Internal Report, OR/13/013. |
| Aggregate: | Particles of rock which, when brought together in a bound or unbound condition, form part or whole of a building or civil engineering structure. |
| Biogenic: | A material formed by organisms or biological activity. |
| Carboniferous: | A period of geological time from 359 to 318 million years ago. |
| Clast: | A rock fragment; commonly applied to a fragment of pre-existing rock included in a younger sediment. |
| Evaporite: | A mineral formed from precipitation from concentrated brine. |
| Flint: | Variety of chert occurring in the Chalk of northern Europe. |
| Fluvial: | Relating to a river; a deposit produced by the action of a river. |
| Glaciofluvial: | May be applied to sediment transported and deposited by running water discharged from an ice mass. |
| Glacial deposits: | Heterogeneous material transported by glaciers or icebergs and deposited directly on land or in the sea. Often poorly sorted. |
| Gravel: | Granular material in clasts between 4 and 80 millimetres; coarse aggregate.
Used for general and concrete applications. |
| Holocene: | The youngest epoch of the Quaternary period from 0.01 million years to present. |
| Mineral: | A naturally formed chemical element or compound and normally having a characteristic crystal form and a distinct composition. |
| Moraine: | A landform deposited directly by a glacier. |
| Permian: | A period of geological time from 299 to 251 million years ago. |
| Placer: | A deposit of economic minerals formed by natural (often gravity driven) processes. |
| Periglacial: | Cold, dry climatic conditions occurring away from glacial ice. |
| Pleistocene: | An epoch of the Quaternary period from 2.58 to 0.01 million years ago. |
| Quartz: | Crystalline silica; an important durable rock-forming mineral. |
| Quaternary: | An era of geological time from 2.58 million years ago to present. |
| Reserve: | That part of a mineral resource that is economical to work and has been fully evaluated on a systematic basis by drilling and sampling and is free from legal or other obstruction that might inhibit extraction. |
| Resource: | Natural accumulations of minerals, or bodies of rock, that are, or may become, of potential economic interest as a basis for the extraction of a commodity. |
| Sand: | A granular material that is finer than 4 mm, but coarser than 0.063 mm. |
| Sandstone: | A sedimentary rock made of abundant fragments of sand size set in a fine-grained matrix or cementing material. The sand particles are usually of quartz. |
| Siliclastic: | a clastic sediment predominantly (over 50%) composed of silicate minerals |
| Till: | glacial sediments, often unsorted clay and boulders deposited directly from glaciers. |
| Triassic: | A Period of geological time from 250 to 200 million years ago. |
| Westphalian: | A Period of geological time during the late Carboniferous. |