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Felsic magmas and lavas have lower temperatures of melting and solidification than mafic magmas and lavas. Felsic rocks are usually light in color and have specific gravities less than 3. The most common felsic rock is granite. Common felsic minerals include quartz, muscovite, orthoclase, and the sodium-rich plagioclase feldspars (albite-rich).
Rhyolite is an extrusive igneous rock, formed from magma rich in silica that is extruded from a volcanic vent to cool quickly on the surface rather than slowly in the subsurface. It is generally light in color due to its low content of mafic minerals, and it is typically very fine-grained or glassy. [5]
Quartz monzonite is an intrusive, felsic, igneous rock that has an approximately equal proportion of orthoclase and plagioclase feldspars. It is typically a light colored phaneritic (coarse-grained) to porphyritic granitic rock. The plagioclase is typically intermediate to sodic in composition, andesine to oligoclase.
Mafic rocks are primarily composed of biotite, hornblende, pyroxene and olivine. Generally, felsic rocks are light colored and mafic rocks are darker colored. [18] For textural classification, igneous rocks that have crystals large enough to be seen by the naked eye are called phaneritic; those with crystals too small to be seen are called ...
Tonalite is an igneous, plutonic rock, of felsic composition, with phaneritic (coarse-grained) texture. Feldspar is present as plagioclase (typically oligoclase or andesine) with alkali feldspar making up less than 10% of the total feldspar content.
Felsite covered with dendritic pyrolusite Dike of felsite on Islay in Scotland. Felsite is a very fine-grained volcanic rock that may or may not contain larger crystals.Felsite is a field term for a light-colored rock that typically requires petrographic examination or chemical analysis for more precise definition.
Phaneritic (phaner = visible) textures are typical of intrusive igneous rocks, these rocks crystallized slowly below Earth's surface. As magma cools slowly the minerals have time to grow and form large crystals. The minerals in a phaneritic igneous rock are sufficiently large to see each individual crystal with the naked eye.
Color index, as a geological term, is a measure of the ratio between generally dark mafic minerals and generally light felsic minerals in an igneous rock. [ 1 ] [ 2 ] The color index of an igneous rock is the volume percentage of mafic minerals in the rock, excluding minerals generally regarded as "colorless" such as apatite , muscovite ...