Shale is a fine-grained sedimentary rock formed from mud. The mud is a mix of flakes of clay minerals and tiny fragments (silt-sized particles) of other minerals, especially quartz and calcite. The ratio of clay to other minerals is variable. Shale is characterized by breaks along thin laminae or parallel layering or bedding less than one centimeter in thickness, called "fissility" (= ~splitting). Mudstones, on the other hand, are similar in composition but do not show the fissility.