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natural history page title
Identifying rocks, minerals and fossils

Introduction
What is a rock?
What is a mineral?
What is a fossil?
Rock, mineral or 
    fossil?

Rock key

  Sedimentary
     Grain size key
     Conglomerate
     Sandstone
     Unknown

Mineral key
Fossil key
Helpful Books

  
Conglomerate
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image of conglomerate sedimentary rock

Your sedimentary rock is probably a conglomerate. Conglomerates are made up of rounded pebbles or bits of pebbles stuck together with a finer rock cement. They are formed by the flow of water; the sea depositing pebbles on a beach, or a flash flood sweeping lots of large pebbles together. The pebbles can range in size from tiny fragments to large stones and indicate the speed of flow of the water which deposited them: large pebbles need very fast water to move them!
Conglomerates which angular fragments instead of rounded pebbles are called breccias.