A humorous field term for a rock sample that has been so intensely brecciated, sheared, or hydrothermally altered that its parent rock is completely destroyed. Geologists use this placeholder name when a core sample or outcrop is an unrecognizable mess of clay, fault gouge, or mixed fragments that defies standard classification.
Heard on the job
We hit a shear zone at 200 meters and pulled up ten feet of solid fubarite, so I just logged it as fault gouge.
Insider tip
The name is a play on a military acronym for 'fouled up beyond all recognition', adapted with the standard mineral suffix '-ite'.