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Igneous rock (igneous from Latin igneus 'fiery'), or magmatic rock, is one of the three main rock types, the others being sedimentary and metamorphic. Igneous rocks are formed through the cooling and solidification of magma or lava. The magma can be derived from partial melts of existing rocks in either a planet 's mantle or crust.
The change of rock composition most responsible for the creation of magma is the addition of water. Water lowers the solidus temperature of rocks at a given pressure. For example, at a depth of about 100 kilometers, peridotite begins to melt near 800 °C in the presence of excess water, but near 1,500 °C in the absence of water. [69]
Magma exists in three main forms that vary in composition. [3] When magma crystallizes within the crust, it forms an extrusive igneous rock. Dependent on the composition of the magma, it may form either rhyolite, andesite, or basalt. [3] Volatiles, particularly water and carbon dioxide, significantly impact the behavior of each form of magma ...
Igneous differentiation. In geology, igneous differentiation, or magmatic differentiation, is an umbrella term for the various processes by which magmas undergo bulk chemical change during the partial melting process, cooling, emplacement, or eruption. The sequence of (usually increasingly silicic) magmas produced by igneous differentiation is ...
Rhyolite (/ ˈraɪ.əlaɪt / RY-ə-lyte) [1][2][3][4] is the most silica -rich of volcanic rocks. It is generally glassy or fine-grained (aphanitic) in texture, but may be porphyritic, containing larger mineral crystals (phenocrysts) in an otherwise fine-grained groundmass. The mineral assemblage is predominantly quartz, sanidine, and plagioclase.
Andesite is an aphanitic (fine-grained) to porphyritic (coarse-grained) igneous rock that is intermediate in its content of silica and low in alkali metals. It has less than 20% quartz and 10% feldspathoid by volume, with at least 65% of the feldspar in the rock consisting of plagioclase. This places andesite in the basalt /andesite field of ...
Basalt (UK: / ˈbæsɔːlt, - əlt /; [1] US: / bəˈsɔːlt, ˈbeɪsɔːlt /) [2] is an aphanitic (fine-grained) extrusive igneous rock formed from the rapid cooling of low- viscosity lava rich in magnesium and iron (mafic lava) exposed at or very near the surface of a rocky planet or moon. More than 90% of all volcanic rock on Earth is basalt.
Magmatism. Geological map showing the Gangdese batholith, which is a product of magmatic activity about 100 million years ago. Magmatism is the emplacement of magma within and at the surface of the outer layers of a terrestrial planet, which solidifies as igneous rocks. It does so through magmatic activity or igneous activity, the production ...