A soft, porous sedimentary rock composed of broken shells, shell fragments, and coral, used in construction and road building.
From Spanish 'coquina,' meaning small shell, derived from 'concha' (shell) through diminutive forms. The term traveled from Caribbean/Gulf Coast regions where the rock naturally forms, entering English geological vocabulary.
Coquina is basically compacted beach—thousands of years of crushed shells cemented together by time and pressure. You can find entire buildings and roads in Florida and the Caribbean literally made of pulverized shells, which means you're walking on compressed history.
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