]> A heterogeneous or conglomerate is a rock consisting of individual stones that have become cemented together. Conglomerates are sedimentary rocks consisting of rounded fragments and are thus differentiated from breccias, which consist of angular clasts.[1] Both conglomerates and breccias are characterized by clasts larger than sand (>2 mm). [Wikipedia] One of the major groups of rock that makes up the crust of the Earth; consists of pre-existing rock mass in which new minerals or textures are formed at higher temperatures and greater pressures than those present on the Earth's surface [wicktionary] A mélange is a large scale breccia, a mappable body of rock characterized by a lack of continuous bedding and the inclusion of fragments of rock of all sizes, contained in a fine-grained deformed matrix. The mélange typically consists of a jumble of large blocks of varied lithologies of altered oceanic crustal material and blocks of continental slope sediments in a sheared mudstone matrix. Some larger blocks of rock may be as much as 1 km across. [Wikipedia] Meteoric substances are rocks that have composition significantly different from earth rocks. Meteorites have traditionally been divided into three broad categories: stony meteorites are rocks, mainly composed of silicate minerals; iron meteorites are largely composed of metallic iron-nickel; and, stony-iron meteorites contain large amounts of both metallic and rocky material. [Wikipedia] Molasse refers to the sandstones, shales and conglomerates formed as terrestrial or shallow marine deposits in front of rising mountain chains deposited in a foreland basin, especially on top of flysch, for example that left from the rising Alps, or erosion in the Himalaya. These deposits are typically the non-marine alluvial and fluvial sediments of lowlands, as compared to deep-water flysch sediments. Sedimentation stops once the orogeny stops, or once the mountains have eroded flat. [Wikipedia] Regolith (Greek: "blanket rock") is a layer of loose, heterogeneous material covering solid rock (bedrock). It includes dust, soil, broken rock, and other related materials [Wikipedia] Rock is a naturally occurring solid aggregate of minerals and/or mineraloids. In general rocks are of three types, namely, igneous, sedimentary, and metamorphic. [Wikipedia] One of the major groups of rock that makes up the crust of the Earth; formed by the deposition of either the weathered remains of other rocks, the results of biological activity, or precipitation from solution [wicktionary] Fossils are the preserved remains or traces of animals, plants, and other organisms from the remote past. Fossils vary in size from microscopic, such as single bacterial cells [2] only one micrometer in diameter, to gigantic (macroscopic), such as dinosaurs and trees many meters long and weighing many tons. [Wikipedia] Macrofossils are preserved organic remains large enough to be visible without a microscope. [Wikipedia] Fossils which are of microscopic size such as bacteria. [Wikipedia] One of 3 processes in the Rock Cycle. When sedimentary (and/or) igneous layers are folded, bent or twisted by heat and pressure due to motions of tectonic plates or intrusions by magma, the rocky material is transformed into other rock called metamorphic rock. [Wikipedia] The rock cycle is a fundamental concept that describes the dynamic transitions through geologic time among the three main rock types: sedimentary, metamorphic, and igneous. [Wikipedia] One of 3 processes in the Rock Cycle. When wind or water deposit fine grained material on the surface, it creates sheets. Over thousands of years, the composition can change subtly or distinctly and the result is differing compositions of layered deposits. As the overlying layers compact the soil underneath the soil is converted to rock by the process of lithification. [Wikipedia] A substantial break or gap in the geologic record where a rock unit is overlain by another that is not next in stratigraphic sucession, such as an interruption in continuity of a depositional sequence of sedimentary rocks or a break between eroded igneous rocks and younger sedimentary strata. It results from a change that caused deposition to cease for a considerable time, and it normally implies uplift and erosion with loss of the previous formed record.