Shale fragments from the Grube Messel fossil pit
Shale is a fine-grained sedimentary rock formed from mud. The mud is a mix of flakes of clay minerals and tiny fragments (silt-sized particles) of other minerals, especially quartz and calcite. The ratio of clay to other minerals is variable. Shale has breaks along thin laminae (plates) or parallel layering or bedding less than one centimeter in thickness, called "fissility" (~splitting).Mudstones, on the other hand, are similar, though they do not show the tendency to split (fissility).
