As words go, "detritus" is nice; it is short and even I can spell it correctly (at least most of the time). The word is concise and easy to say. Only its meaning is ambiguous. The term "detritus" is actually a word of Latin derivation and it means a "rubbing or wearing away." As is generally understood, detritus is fine particulate material that is eroded off of larger particles. In our systems, detritus is the small particulate material resulting from either the biological or physical processing of food, living things, or substrata. Often this is waste material from some relatively large organism. So, "detritus" means small particulate material of uncertain and variable origin.
