Puddingstone (rock)

Puddingstone, or Pudding stone, is a conglomerate rock made up of a mixture of different, irregular sized grains and pebbles held together by a finer matrix, usually formed from quartz sand. The sedimentary rock is formed in river channels and may contain various minerals such as chromite, corundum, platinum, diamond, gold, sapphire, and zircon. Its name is said to derive from a resemblance to Christmas pudding. [cite web | url = http://piclib.nhm.ac.uk/piclib/www/image.php?
| title = Puddingstone | publisher = Natural History Museum, London | accessdate = August 31 | accessyear = 2006 ] [cite web | url = http://web.archive.org/web/20050929173323/http://collections.ic.gc.ca/Mississagi/natural/land/puddingstone.htm| title = Puddingstone | publisher = Government of Canada | accessdate = April 10 | accessyear = 2007 ]

There are different types of puddingstone, with different makeup and geographical distribution. These include:

*Hertfordshire puddingstone, principally found in Hertfordshire, England
*Bearfort Mountain puddingstone, is a purple puddingstone found in northern New Jersey
*Roxbury puddingstone, principally found in and around Boston, Massachusetts
*Plumstead Common has a fine example of puddingstone, probably left behind after the last Ice Age
*St. Joseph Island puddingstone, found in the St. Mary's River area of Northern Ontario contains red and brown pieces of jasper, a kind of quartz.

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