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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.
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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.
