Bedrock
- This article is about the type of rock. Bedrock is also the name of the town in which The Flintstones lived.
Bedrock is the native consolidated rock underlying the Earth's surface in a particular area. Above the bedrock is usually an area of broken and weathered unconsolidated rock in the basal subsoil. The term notes that the fact that the rock lies in beds, or strata.
The term bedrock may be somewhat misleading, since in many locations, the bedrock may change over a short distance, or the technical bedrock may be a thin stratum overlying quite different rock. Under any given location on the surface of the planet, rock will be found.
Viewing of a geologic map of the area usually will show bands of differing rock type exposure in an area. What the map is showing is what rock would be exposed at the surface if all soil were removed. Usually, these bands reflect the exposure of different rock strata, or layers. These may change either because the strata are flat, but the surface has been eroded with slopes across their edges, or because the strata are tilted, and normal surface erosion has removed the upper parts of the higher layers.
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