How to Use carbonaceous in a Sentence

carbonaceous

adjective
  • The refuse pile consisted of coal waste, carbonaceous shale, and coal ash.
    — Logan Smith, CBS News, 11 Apr. 2026
  • Also note the dark black flecks…this material is mostly carbonaceous shale, which is kind of like coal.
    — Brian Romans, WIRED, 10 Aug. 2007
  • The carbonaceous chondrite is divided into six groups based on their bulk chemistry.
    — Perry A. Farrell, Detroit Free Press, 17 Jan. 2018
  • Ryugu is a carbonaceous or C-type space rock, which implies it is essentially made out of rock that contains a ton of carbon and water.
    — Popular Science, 25 Sep. 2020
  • Now, new research indicates that many carbonaceous asteroids, may be much more rocky than previously thought.
    — Bruce Dorminey, Forbes, 22 Oct. 2021
  • The type of meteorite that produces the fragments that littered Winchcombe was made of carbonaceous chondrite.
    — Mike Wehner, BGR, 9 Mar. 2021
  • And the carbon inside the fossils contained even less carbon-13 than the random bits of carbonaceous stuff outside the fossils.
    — Scott K. Johnson, Ars Technica, 3 Jan. 2018
  • Most of the carbonaceous chondrites fell onto the ice during that 2000 incident.
    — Elizabeth Howell, Forbes, 10 Mar. 2021
  • The meteorite is classified as a carbonaceous chondrite, which is an rare piece of space debris that’s older than the planets in the solar system.
    — Theresa MacHemer, Smithsonian Magazine, 11 Mar. 2021
  • The meteorite—a rare type known as a carbonaceous chondrite—may contain complex organic molecules that gave life on Earth a head start.
    — Joel Goldberg, Science | AAAS, 19 Aug. 2020
  • Comets, which come from beyond the orbit of Neptune, resemble carbonaceous chondrites, but with extra water ice.
    — Byadam Mann, science.org, 15 Aug. 2024
  • Once part of a much larger body, Ryugu is a C-type, or carbonaceous, asteroid, meaning it is made of mostly clay and silicate rocks.
    — Elizabeth Rayne, Ars Technica, 19 May 2024
  • Water — found in carbonaceous asteroids — may matter before platinum-group metals.
    — Jamie Carter, Forbes.com, 1 July 2026
  • The carbonaceous chondrite, which contains organics, amino acids and other ingredients for life, is so rare that it has never been found in that region before.
    — Elizabeth Howell, Forbes, 10 Mar. 2021
  • All three are classified as carbonaceous chondrites, made of rocky material thought to have formed early in the solar system’s history.
    — NBC News, 28 Apr. 2022
  • Aliphatic aldehydes, which have been found in some types of carbonaceous meteorites that have fallen to Earth, are precursors of carboxylic acids and amino acids.
    — Elizabeth Rayne, Ars Technica, 14 Nov. 2023
  • This hypothesis could be reinforced by bringing back the first pristine samples from carbonaceous asteroids.
    — Jeremy Hsu, Scientific American, 26 June 2018
  • The mammals also miniaturized over generations, as leaves became less nutritious in the carbonaceous air.
    — Natalie Wolchover, WIRED, 3 Mar. 2019
  • When word spread throughout the scientific community that the dining room destroyer might be a carbonaceous chondrite, a ticking clock began.
    — David Grossman, Popular Mechanics, 22 May 2019
  • Immense numbers of carbonaceous asteroids must have fallen on the early, prebiotic Earth.
    — Dante S. Lauretta, Scientific American, 1 Aug. 2016
  • Warm hydrogen glows pinkish-purple in the image, while cosmic dust, composed of tiny grains of siliceous (rocky) and carbonaceous (sooty) material, appears reddish-brown.
    — Phil Plait, Scientific American, 14 June 2024
  • Most of these were likely not comets but rather asteroids called carbonaceous chondrites, which can be up to 20 percent water by weight, storing it in a form of hydrogen like ringwoodite.
    — Quanta Magazine, 11 July 2018
  • One common theory holds that rocky planets like Earth and Mars got much of their water from a particular type of meteorite known as carbonaceous chondrites.
    — Popular Science, 2 Apr. 2020
  • But this theory doesn’t explain why Phobos and Deimos look so similar to D-type asteroids with their carbonaceous surfaces.
    — The Physics Arxiv Blog, Discover Magazine, 31 May 2024
  • Closer analysis revealed that the meteorite was formed from eight types of CM chondrite, the most common variation of carbonaceous chondrite.
    — Sorcha Bradley, The Week Uk, theweek, 17 Apr. 2024
  • For example, carbonaceous chondrites—some of the oldest rocks in the solar system—were recently found to harbor pyruvic acid, which is essential for metabolism.
    — David W. Brown, Smithsonian, 2 July 2018
  • The one pound of carbonaceous chondrite plowed into the English town of Winchcombe in February 2021.
    — Tim Newcomb, Popular Mechanics, 17 Nov. 2022
  • That is strange because the other rocky planets have a lot less carbon on their surfaces, and carbonaceous asteroids from which a carbon-rich planet could form are much further from the sun than Mercury’s present orbit.
    — David Rothery, Discover Magazine, 11 Mar. 2016
  • Both were carbonaceous chondrites, a rare class of meteorites resembling Ryugu that scientists think accreted from smaller icy bodies after the solar system first formed.
    — John Rennie, Quanta Magazine, 4 Jan. 2023
  • This represents a technical shift in how researchers design carbonaceous anodes for energy applications.
    — Aman Tripathi, Interesting Engineering, 25 Dec. 2025

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'carbonaceous.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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