GEOGRAPHICAL NAMES

MARL (from O. Fr. marle, Late Lat. margila, dim. of marga; cf. Du. and Ger.Mergel), a calcareous
clay, or a mixture of carbonate of lime with argillaceous matter. It is impossible to give a strict
definition of a marl, for the term is applied to a great variety of rocks and soils with a considerable
range of composition. On the one hand, the marls graduate into clays by diminution in the amount
of lime that they contain, and on the other hand they pass into argillaceous limestones (see
Limestone). From 2 5-75% of carbonate of lime may be regarded as characteristic of the marls.
But in popular usage many substances are called marls which would not be included under the
definition given here. The practice formerly much in vogue of top-dressing land with marls, and the
use of many different kinds of earth and clay for that purpose, has led to a very general
misapplication of the term; for all sorts of rotted rock, some being of igneous origin while others are
rain-wash, loams, and various superficial deposits, have been called "marls" in different parts of
Britain, if only it was believed that an application of them to the surface of the fields would result in
increased fertility.
The typical marls are soft, earthy, and of a white, grey or brownish colour. Many of them
disintegrate in water; and they are readily attacked by dilute hydrochloric acid, which dissolves the
carbonate of lime rapidly, giving off bubbles of carbon dioxide. The lime of some marls is present in
the form of shells, whole or broken; in others it is a fine impalpable powder mixed with the clay. In
many marls there is organic matter (plant fragments or humus). Sand is usually not abundant but
is rarely absent. Gypsum occurs in some marls, occasionally in large simple crystals with the form
of lozenge-shaped plates or in twinned groups resembling an arrow-head; fine examples of these
are obtained in the marls of Montmartre near Paris, where celestine (strontium sulphate) occurs
also in nodular or concretionary masses. Large crystals of calcite or of dolomite, lumps of iron
pyrites or radiate nodules of marcasite, and small crystals of quartz are found in certain marl
deposits; and in Westphalia the marls of the Senonian (part of the Cretaceous system) at Hamm
yield masses of strontianite up to two feet in length. A very large variety of accessory minerals may
be proved to exist in marls by microscopic examination.
The rocks known as shell marls are found in many parts of Britain and other northern countries,
and are much valued by farmers as a source of carbonate of lime, though rarely burned to produce
quicklime. They are generally obtained by digging pits in marshy spots or meadows, and often
occur below considerable thicknesses of peat. Large numbers of shells of fresh-water mollusca are
scattered through a matrix of clay; usually retaining their shapes though they are in a friable and
semi-decomposed state. The species represented are very few, and from their unbroken state it is
obvious that they have not been transported but lived in the place where their remains are found.
As mollusca of this kind thrive best in open stretches of clear water, the sites of the marl deposits
must have been shallow lakes and open pools.
Among the older strata it is not uncommon to find beds which have the same composition and in
many cases the same origin as shell marl. While some of them are fresh-water deposits, others
are of marine origin. The "crag beds" of the Pliocene formation in Norfolk, Suffolk and Essex are
essentially sand and gravel, which are often rich in shells; with them occur clays such as the
Chillesford clay; and many of these beds have actually been used as marls for dressing the
surface of agricultural land. Better examples occur among the Oligocene beds of the Hampshire
basin and the Isle of Wight, where the Steadon, Bembridge and Hempstead marls are clays, more
or less sandy, containing fresh-water shells. In the Cretaceous rocks of the south of England soft
argillaceous limestones of marine origin, which may be described as marls, occur on several
horizons. At its base the white chalk is often mixed with clay, and the "chalk marl" is a rock of this
kind; it is known in Cambridgeshire, at Folkestone, in the Isle of Wight, &c. The chloritic marl,
which underlies the chalk and is well developed in the Isle of Wight, is a greenish argillaceous
limestone, the colour being due to the presence of glauconite, not of chlorite; it is often very
fossiliferous. The Gault, an argillaceous type of the Upper Greensand, is a stiff greyish calcareous
clay, beneath the white chalk, well known for the excellent preservation of its fossils. It outcrops

along the base of the escarpment of the North and South Downs; the original name given to it by
William Smith was "the blue marl." In the Jurassic rocks of England there are marls or shelly freshwater clays in the Purbeck series and also in the estuarine beds of the Great Oolite, but the name
"marlstone" has long been reserved for the argillaceous limestone of the Middle Lias. It ranges
from the Dorset coast, through Edge Hill in Warwickshire and Lincolnshire, and thence to the sea
in the north of Yorkshire, presenting many variations in this long extent of country and often
accompanied by, or converted into, beds of clay ironstone. The marlstone is typically a firm,
greyish limestone weathering to a rusty brown colour, and is always more or less argillaceous.
In the Triassic rocks of Britain there is a very important series of red, green and mottled clays, over
a thousand feet thick in some places, which have been called the New Red marls. They belong to
the Keuper or uppermost division of the system, and in Cheshire contain valuable deposits of rock
salt, the principal sources of that mineral in Great Britain. In the strict sense these rocks are not
marls, being ferruginous clays rather than calcareous clays. Most of them appear to have been laid
down in saline lakes in desert regions. As a rule they contain very few fossils, and often they have
little or no carbonate of lime, but beds and veins of fibrous gypsum occur in them in considerable
profusion. These rocks cover a wide area in the midland counties extending to the south coast
near Exmouth, and reappear in the north in the Vale of Eden and a few places in southern
Scotland. The clays are used for brickmaking, and yield a stiff soil, mostly devoted to pasture and
dairy farming. In the Rhaetic beds which immediately overlie the Triassic rocks there are three
seams of calcareous clay, often only a few feet thick, which have been called the "grey marls" and
the "tea-green marls." To rocks older than these the name marl has not often been given, probably
because, though argillaceous limestones are often common in the Carboniferous and Silurian
rocks, they are usually firm and compact, while marls usually comprise rocks which are more or
less soft and friable. In other countries, and especially in Germany, many different kinds of marl
and of marl-slate are described. Two of these are of especial importance - the dark copper-bearing
marl slate of the Permian rocks near Mansfeld in Germany, which has been long and extensively
worked as sources of copper, and the white or creamy Solenhofen limestone, much quarried in
Bavaria, and used as a lithographic stone. (J. S. F.)

u can calculate by using following formula

i.e.C1V1=C2V2
C1=36.5% i.e the conc. u have.
V1=volume to be taken from 36.5%.
C2=10% i.e the conc. u want.
V2= Volume to be diluted in ml.
V1=C2*V2/C1
i.e V1= 10*100/36.5=27.40ml