What is it and where is it formed?  Conglomerate is a rock that has pieces of other rocks glued together to form one larger chunk.  It is a sedimentary rock that can be found along beaches, rivers, and glaciers where water or ice drops them off.  It is made up of pebbles and other small rocks that are a quarter of an inch around or bigger. The pebbles can be made of quartz, or some other mineral.  It is glued together with iron oxide, calcium carbonate, or silica. It looks lumpy with bigger rocks cemented with small gravel and sand.  If you look at the two conglomerate rocks on the right, you will see that they look very different.  They look so different because they were formed in different places and were made up of different kinds of small rocks, sand, and minerals.

How and where is it mined?  Conglomerate is mined using surface placer mining and sometimes underground mining.  Since it is mostly used for display and doesn’t have a lot of other uses, it is not mined much.  It is mined in lots of places in the world.  Some of these are:  Australia, Ireland, and the United States.

What is it used for?  It is sometimes used as a decoration.  A chunk might be polished and sit in a mall or office building.  It might be used as an inside wall of a building.  It is not very strong and doesn’t have a lot of uses other than decoration.  Conglomerate is pretty and can have lots of colors.