Talk:Marl

Marl vs marlstone vs argillaceous limestone
From the article, we have "The term is today often used to describe indurated marine deposits and lacustrine (lake) sediments which more accurately should be named 'marlstone'. Marlstone is an indurated rock of about the same composition as marl, more correctly called an earthy or impure argillaceous limestone." There is a table that treats these terms as representing different positions on a scale that goes from limestone to mudstone (but with marl and marlstone as equivalents). These might all be correct in different places or academic environments, but as stated in the article they are in direct conflict. It would be helpful if someone with the appropriate background could sort this out.Harry Meanwell (talk) 17:32, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

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German terms "Mergel" and "Seekreide"
German terms for marl are relevant in the English Wikipedia only if they see significant use in English-language sources. Google Scholar did not bring up any instances of "Mergel" except as a surname of authors of papers. "Seekreide" came up seldom in English sources and it is not at all clear it means the same thing as marl; the one paper that gave a chemical description gave it a calcium carbonate content of 70-85 percent, well above the range given by Pettijohn. (This would be more of an argillaceous limestone.) I've therefore remove the unsourced statement about the German language equivalent. --Kent G. Budge (talk) 23:38, 25 September 2020 (UTC)

Limestone-marlstone-mudstone transitional graph error
The transitional graph at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marl#/media/File:Marl_vs_clay_&_lime_EN.PNG has an error; it puts slightly-calciferous mudstone and slightly-argillaceous limestone as closer to the extrema than calciferous mudstone and argillaceous limestone. I'm not much at making graphs but this should almost certainly be changed, unless that's standardized within geology in a way that defies the normal usage of "slightly". — Preceding unsigned comment added by 146.168.11.147 (talk) 20:52, 4 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Consider the sequence "Limestone - slightly argillaceous limestone - agillaceous limestone", with the understanding that "argillaceous" means "containing clay minerals". It means the sequence is equivalently "Limestone - limestone with small amounts of clay - limestone containing clay." Does that help? --Kent G. Budge (talk) 20:59, 4 April 2021 (UTC)

Fabric
Fyi. Marl seems to be used to describe a specific type of fabric pattern/coloring, see for example https://www.bloomsburysquarefabrics.com/product/viscose-jersey-knit-blue-marl/ KR 17387349L8764 (talk) 20:04, 27 May 2021 (UTC)
 * I think heather gets used in much the same way. Not sure whether there's anything useful to do except perhaps add the terms to Wiktionary, as there's probably not more than a dictionary definition available.  ... Ah, I typed that too soon, then checked that link and found Heather (fabric), which includes a section on Marl yarn, which indeed already exists as a redirect. And it was already included in the "Other uses" section of Marl (disambiguation) (to which a hatnote points from this article), though I've tweaked the link to be more exact. So all is well.   Pam  D  22:21, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

Historical uses in agriculture and in Portland cement
I am hesitant to remove sourced material, but I find this section questionable. It seems to be giving undue weight to the use of marl over a century ago in a single state of the United States. The sources are themselves from that time period, rather than more modern historical analysis that might establish notability. I wonder if this section should be reduced to a single sentence at the start of the modern agricultural uses section that simply mentions that marl has a long history of agricultural use and has the best general sources.

A second thing that puzzles me is that Jackson (1997) mentions use of marl from marl ponds for manufacture of Portland cement, and Google Scholar does indeed dredge up (heh) a number of sources confirming this. But they're all either very old articles (1901, 1920s) on use of marl as the chief ingredient in Portland cement, or very recent articles that treat use of marl in Portland cement as a novel additive. I'm not quite sure how to square these. --Kent G. Budge (talk) 16:11, 1 February 2022 (UTC)