orthoarenite
|or-tho-a-re-nite|
🇺🇸
/ˌɔrθoʊəˈrɛnɪt/
🇬🇧
/ˌɔːθəʊəˈrɛnɪt/
quartz-rich mature sandstone
Etymology
'orthoarenite' originates from Greek and Latin: from Greek 'orthos' meaning 'straight' or 'correct' (used as the prefix 'ortho-') and from Latin 'arena' meaning 'sand' (via the rock-name suffix '-ite').
'arenite' comes from Latin 'arena' (sand), passed into Late Latin and Romance languages as a term for sandy rock and was adopted into English geological usage; the combining form 'ortho-' (from Greek 'orthos') was added in modern geological classification to form 'orthoarenite'.
Initially the components meant 'correct/straight' and 'sand', but in geological usage 'ortho-' came to signal compositional/textural maturity, so 'orthoarenite' now denotes a quartz-rich, mature sandstone rather than a literal 'straight sand'.
Meanings by Part of Speech
Noun 1
a type of sandstone composed predominantly of well-sorted, rounded quartz grains (a quartz-rich or 'mature' arenite); equivalent to quartz arenite in petrographic classification.
The geologist described the outcrop as an orthoarenite, indicating a high degree of textural and compositional maturity.
Synonyms
Last updated: 2026/01/16 15:33