flysch

American  

[flish] / flɪʃ /

noun

Geology.

1. an association of certain types of marine sedimentary rocks characteristic of deposition in a foredeep.

---

Flysch British  

/ flɪʃ /

noun

1. (sometimes not capital) a marine sedimentary facies consisting of a sequence of sandstones, conglomerates, marls, shales, and clays that were formed by erosion during a period of mountain building and subsequently deformed as the mountain building continued. The phenomenon was first observed in the Alps

---

Etymology

Origin of flysch

1845–55; < German < Swiss German flīsch referring to such deposits in the Swiss Alps; perhaps akin to Swabian dial. flins slate (akin to flint )

Example Sentences

But it is by wide agreement the very best flysch of all.

From Los Angeles Times • Oct. 28, 2022

Zumaia’s flysch — the geologic term for this kind of rock formation — is not the only flysch on Earth.

From Los Angeles Times • Oct. 28, 2022

Later, Dunn and Luis Chiappe, the Natural History Museum’s head of research and collections, hiked down the flysch to get a closer look.

From Los Angeles Times • Oct. 28, 2022

Bouma, A. H., Kuenen, P. H. & Shepard, F. P. Sedimentology of some flysch deposits: a graphic approach to facies interpretation.

From Textbooks • Jan. 1, 2017

Some members of the nummulitic and overlying tertiary strata called flysch have actually been converted in the central Alps into crystalline rocks, and transformed into marble, quartz-rock, micha-schist, and gneiss.

From The Student's Elements of Geology by Lyell, Charles, Sir