This group comprises yellowish-brown to brown, silty to very silty, mostly quite calcareous and inactive clays. The silt component is aeolian and comprises mainly quartz (7–20% of the slide area), tendentiously of an angular habit, but also appreciable amounts of additional minerals, such as feldspars, micas, amphiboles, pyroxenes and opaques. At times, scattered foraminifera occur in the matrix (mainly PG1b–c). Fine to coarse (up to 1320 µm) quartz sand is by far the most common non-plastic inclusion, forming up to ca. 15% of the slide area. It mainly appears rounded to subrounded and is often spherical in shape. In several cases the grains are strained (undulose extinction, subgrain re-crystallization). The quartz is always accompanied by feldspars (up to 370 µm) (plagioclase, microcline, orthoclase) and heavy minerals (up to 220 µm), such as micas (biotite, muscovite), amphiboles (hornblende) and pyroxenes (augite) of fine to medium sand size. Fine to coarse calcareous sand (up to 1550 µm) was observed in many specimens, but is always rare, not exceeding 1–2% of the slide area. It consists of limestone (micritic or sparitic) and the occasional nari. Kurkar (calcareous sandstone) was observed in a single case. Chalk sand is altogether absent. Additional inclusions comprise mollusk shell fragments (up to 1600 µm), both marine and terrestrial, as well as very rare angular
chert (up to 450 µm). Based on the frequency and nature of the non-plastic inclusions, three sub-groups
can be distinguished, PG1a–c.
PG1b: The quartz sand tends to be better sorted than in the previous sub-group and
is less abundant (ca. 3–5% of the slide area). Grains have an average size of
180–250 µm and grains almost never exceed the medium size fraction (up to 500
µm). Feldspars and heavy minerals are less common than in the previous sub-group
and of smaller grain sizes (up to 140 µm).