The Collaborative International Dictionary
Coquina \Co*qui"na\, n. [Sp., shellfish, cockle.] A soft, whitish, coral-like stone, formed of broken shells and corals, found in the southern United States, and used for roadbeds and for building material, as in the fort at St. Augustine, Florida.
Wiktionary
n. 1 Any of several small marine clams, of the species (taxlink Donax variabilis species noshow=1), common in US coastal waters. 2 (context geology English) A soft form of limestone made of fragments of shells
Wikipedia
Coquina is a sedimentary rock that is composed either wholly or almost entirely of the transported, abraded, and mechanically-sorted fragments of the shells of molluscs, trilobites, brachiopods, or other invertebrates. The term coquina comes from the Spanish word for " cockle" and "shellfish".
For a sediment to be considered to be a coquina, the particles composing it should average 2 mm or greater in size. Coquina can vary in hardness from poorly to moderately cemented. Incompletely consolidated and poorly cemented coquinas are considered grainstones in the Dunham classification system for carbonate sedimentary rocks. A well-cemented coquina is classified as a biosparite according to the Folk classification of sedimentary rocks.
Coquinas accumulate in high-energy marine and lacustrine environments where currents and waves result in the vigorous winnowing, abrasion, fracturing, and sorting of the shells, which compose them. As a result, they typically exhibit well-developed bedding or cross-bedding, close packing, and good orientation of the shell fragments. The high-energy marine or lacustrine environments associated with coquinas include beaches, shallow submarine raised banks, swift tidal channels, and barrier bars.
Usage examples of "coquina".
Doubling to and fro among forests and swamps, he insisted, was the only possible path of access to the undiscovered Coquina hills of Florida.
Otherwise, he argued, these Coquina hills would long ago have been discovered.
I had taken cover among the ferns behind the parapet of coquina, and with a thrill of pardonable joy I watched him unlimber his photographic artillery and place it in battery where my every posture and action would be recorded for posterity if a cave-lady came down to the water-hole to drink.
Sister Coquina put her hand over that frequently imprudent organ, as if realizing she had said too much.
He saw Jenna snatch up two of the reeds - in his struggle to escape the slings, they had scattered all over the head of the bed - and then they were hurrying up the aisle, away from the bugs and from Sister Coquina, whose cries were now failing.
They collected what shells they could find but only the coquina clams were plentiful on the beach.
With the French sailing north, the Spanish had rechristened the partially demolished place El Castillo de San Diego de Boca Osa and rapidly set about repairing it with shiploads of soft coquina limestone for the walls, lumber and brick for the interiors, and red tiles for the roofs.
French sailing north, the Spanish had rechristened the partially demolished place El Castillo de San Diego de Boca Osa and rapidly set about repairing it with shiploads of soft coquina limestone for the walls, lumber and brick for the interiors, and red tiles for the roofs.
And his father knew the plants of the marshlands Bed Straw and Ox Eye, Seedbox and Frog Fruit, Strangleweed and Dropwort and he knew the creatures of the Gulf waters blue crabs, grass shrimp, hermits, coquinas, sea anemones and sea leeches.
You can get some nice coquinas on the outside beach as it gets cooler.
Because what I hadn't told Monk was that the carriageways and footpaths of Whitehall Palace were covered with coquina – it had crunched under my feet as I wove my way to the offices of the Exchequer.
It doesn't fit into an environment of white sand and the blue-green gulf water, and the absurd and frantic running of the sand pipers, and the coquinas digging into the wash of wet sand.
The packed, even sand gave way to a line of tumbled larger shells just beyond the high-tide line: clam halves ranging from several inches across down to half-inch coquinas, broken red and white conches with the inner spirals exposed, bleached sand-dollars decorated with five-leaf clover designs.
Connie and I had been sitting for a long time in the dark leather chairs near a small crackling of fat pine in the big fireplace of coquina rock.