Stylolite

Stylolites (Greek: stylos, pillar; lithos, stone) are serrated surfaces within a rock mass at which mineral material has been removed by pressure dissolution, in a deformation process that decreases the total volume of rock.

Their size vary from microscopic contacts between two grains (microstylolites) to large structures up to 20 m in length and up to 10 m in amplitude in ice.

[5][6] In structural geology and diagenesis, pressure solution or pressure dissolution is a deformation mechanism that involves the dissolution of minerals at grain-to-grain contacts into an aqueous pore fluid in areas of relatively high stress and either deposition in regions of relatively low stress within the same rock or their complete removal from the rock within the fluid.

In petrology, stylolites are important because they alter rock fabrics and dissolve solids that precipitate as cement.

In stratigraphy, weathering of stylolites generates apparent bedding in many stratigraphic sections and loss of material along stylolites can have a result similar to erosion, with significant stratigraphic thinning.