Medical Definition of amnesia. 1: loss of memory sometimes including the memory of personal identity due to brain injury, shock, fatigue, repression, or illness or sometimes induced by anesthesia a period of amnesia after the wreck.
Shale is a fine-grained sedimentary rock that forms from the compaction of silt and clay-size mineral particles that we commonly call mud. This composition places shale in a category of sedimentary rocks known as mudstones.
An igneous rock such as basalt may break down and dissolve when exposed to the atmosphere, or melt as it is subducted under a continent. Due to the driving forces of the rock cycle, plate tectonics and the water cycle, rocks do not remain in equilibrium and are forced to change as they encounter new environments.