Some Utterly Bogus Facts About Slate for Dummies

natural slate

Anyone out there remember George Orwell? the guy who wrote the iconic speculative fiction novel 1984? We do... and the reason that we're reminded of him today is that we just ran across another Orwell who's a writer of fiction. This one, whose given name is Mark Orwell, wrote (to use his own words) "focusing on popular culture, music, and film." Based on his Sciencing.com post "Facts About Slate Rock," it's a safe bet that he didn't write anything (useful) about science or technology...

We're more than a little leery of an "authority" who opens an allegedly factual article about slate (at least one written for adults) with an observation like,

"One of the more popularly used rocks out there, slate has created a number of mining industry devotees to it across the world."

That, unfortunately, is about as good as Orwell gets with this piece. If you read on, you'll "learn" that,

• "Under the sun, slate rock's gray coloring looks slightly wet and slick."
• "Underground quarries have mines running into rock where slate is found, open quarries mine the slate from the sides of cliffs, and pit quarries are found where a slate deposit dips vertically."

...and our personal favorite, the brazenly stupid,

"Slate rock is an example of a sedimentary rock. It gets formed from either clay or volcanic ash that has been superheated and pressurized underground."

No, Mark, slate is not a sedimentary rock. It's a metamorphic rock; metamorphosed shale or mudstone.
We aren't sure where our Dumbass of the Day came up with that "superheated" bushwa, which sounds hella more like welded tuff than slate, if you ask us. Whatever the case, we've made a note to look for more Orwellian fiction on the eHow.com niches.

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