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How Does Flint Form?

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Aun Jafery answered
Flint is an impure form of quartz and is comprised of silicon. It is actually a form of mineral quartz, a sedimentary cryptocrystalline silicate which is hard. It has a glassy appearance. Though not completely agreed upon, the formation of flint is through the process of diagenesis (a change undergone by a sediment after lithification, the change could be physical, chemical or biological) where chemical changes have taken place in compressed formations of sedimentary rock. Biologically, it was ancient sea sponges being caught under the sea floor.

Flint was used by man extensively during the Stone Age. It had the advantage of being hard and it broke when mined with a conchoidal fracture with sharp edges so was found perfect to form cutting tools. They were used as arrowheads and were fashioned by a process of knapping, where harder stones were worked upon by still harder ones.

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