detritus
noun
rock in small particles or other material worn or broken away from a mass, as by the action of water or glacial ice.
detrital
-
a word derived from
detritus.
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
The study, titled "Ancient landscape evolution tracked through cosmogenic krypton in detrital zircon," was published in PNAS.
From Science Daily ● Mar. 12, 2026
These isotopes helped determine whether clay minerals played a role in fossilization and whether those clays came from land, known as detrital clays, or formed directly within the seafloor, known as authigenic clays.
From Science Daily ● Jan. 27, 2026
"We found that many animals at the depth of discharge depend on naturally occurring small detrital particles -- the very food that mining plume particles replace."
From Science Daily ● Nov. 8, 2025
The primary producers of detrital food webs are photosynthetic whereas those of grazing food webs are decomposers.
From Textbooks ● Jun. 9, 2022
Traced eastward into north Germany, Thuringia and Silesia, the limestones pass into the detrital culm formations, which owe their existence to a southern uplifted massif, the complement of the synclines already mentioned.
From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 5, Slice 3 "Capefigue" to "Carneades" by Various
