Also 8 brechia, 9 brecchia, bricia. [a. It. breccia ‘gravel or rubbish of broken walls’ (Florio), cogn. with F. brèche breaking, breach, breccia, Sp. brecha, adapted from Teutonic: cf. OHG. brecha breaking, f. brechan, OTeut. brekan to BREAK. (Used in the name Breccia Marble, before its separate use in Geology.)]
Geol. A composite rock consisting of angular fragments of stone, etc., cemented together by some matrix, such as lime: sometimes opposed to conglomerate, in which the fragments are rounded and waterworn. Osseous or bone breccia: one in which fossil bones are found.
1774. Strange, in Phil. Trans., LXV. 38. Which the Italians call lava brecciata, from its resemblance to the Breccia marbles.
1781. J. T. Dillon, Trav. Spain, 362. A kind of brechia or pudding-stone.
1784. Wedgwood, in Phil. Trans., LXXIV. 378. It had the appearance of breccia marble or plum-pudding stone.
1802. Playfair, Illustr. Hutton. Theory, 7. Those pudding-stones or breccias where the gravel consists of quartz.
1818. Scott, Rob Roy (1855), 244. Deep gullies where masses of the composite rock or breccia tumbling … from the cliffs have rushed to the valley.
1836. Penny Cycl., V. 374. The name of Breccia is derived from the well-known Breccia marble, which has the appearance of being composed of fragments joined together by carbonate of lime.
1851. D. Wilson, Preh. Ann. (1863), I. i. 29. Embedded in the same breccia with flint knives.
b. transf. A conglomerate of gravel and ice.
1856. Kane, Arct. Expl., I. xi. 116. Stands of the same Arctic breccia.
Hence Breccial a., of or pertaining to breccia.
1853. Kane, Grinnell Exp., xxx. (1856), 259. One solid breccial mass of impacted angularities.
