darn, i did a "Search", hoping that oolites hadn't been discussed here on the Board yet ~ but at least this discussion turned out to be fairly recent (shows how far behind i am on the board, though).

i read a wonderful passage in a John McPhee novel, and wanted to share it since it deals with intriguing etymology:

"Just as raindrops are created around motes of dust, oolites form around bits of rock so tiny that in wave-tossed water they will stir up and move. They move, and settle, move, and settle. And while they are up in the water calcium carbonate forms around them in layer after layer, building something like a pearl. Slice one in half with a diamond saw and you reveal a perfect bull's-eye, or, as its namer obviously imagined it, a stone egg, white and yolk--an oolite."

_Annals of the Former World_, John McPhee - Farrar, Straiss and Giroux, ISBN 0-374-51873-4

fabulous read, BTW... an immense geologic survey of the whole of Northern America around the 40th parallel ~ brilliantly researched and written.