Rocks and Their OriginsCole, Grenville A. J. (Grenville Arthur James)
Science
Rocks and Their Origins
Cole, Grenville A. J. (Grenville Arthur James)
Rocks
Igneous rocks, unless cooled with singular rapidity, thus contain
crystals of various kinds. In lavas, these may form the globular
aggregates known as _spherulites_[62], or may accumulate as a compact
ground of minute grains and needles, not quite resolvable with the
microscope. In many rocks of slightly coarser grain, a compact
_lithoidal_ or stony texture is set up, which the microscope resolves
into an aggregate of crystalline rods or granules. Such compact rocks
are often styled _felsitic_. In other types, as in ordinary granite,
the constituent minerals are easily distinguished with the naked eye.
The order in which these constituents have developed is sometimes clear
from the inclusion of one mineral in another. When two substances
are dissolved in one another, there is a certain proportion between
them, varying with the substances, which allows them to crystallise at
the same time, instead of in succession. This _eutectic proportion_,
when attained by two mineral substances in a magma, brings about a
complete interlocking of their crystals, as is seen in the quartz and
alkali-felspar of the rock known as "graphic granite." The order of
crystallisation of minerals from an ordinary non-eutectic magma is
profoundly affected by the proportions in which their constituents are
present in the mass.
The minerals, when they have separated out, are found to be mostly
silicates. A few oxides, such as rutile, magnetite, and ilmenite,
may occur, the two latter being especially common where iron is an
important constituent of the rock. But almost all igneous rocks consist
largely of one or more species of felspar, silica being here combined
with alumina, potash, soda, and lime. Free silica may remain, and
separates as quartz, or rarely as tridymite. Pale mica occurs in many
rocks of deep-seated origin. In contrast with these light-coloured
minerals, iron, magnesium, and part of the calcium, appear in another
series of silicates, usually dark in colour, and this series may
be broadly styled "ferromagnesian." The pyroxenes, of which augite
is the type, the amphiboles, of which hornblende is the type, dark
mica (mostly biotite), and olivine, are the ordinary ferromagnesian
minerals.
Broadly, then, igneous rocks divide themselves by texture into (i)
those which are completely crystalline, and in which the minerals are
distinctly visible; (ii) those which are completely crystalline, but in
which the crystals are so small as to give rise to a compact lithoidal
ground-mass; and (iii) those in which some glass is present. The third
group may appear lithoidal, or in other cases actually glassy, to the
unaided eye.
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