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The mafic rocks also typically have a higher density than felsic rocks. The term roughly corresponds to the older basic rock class. [9] Mafic lava, before cooling, has a low viscosity, in comparison with felsic lava, due to the lower silica content in mafic magma. Water and other volatiles can more easily and gradually escape from mafic lava.
Compatibility diagrams provide an excellent way to analyze how variations in the rock's composition affect the mineral paragenesis that develops in a rock at particular pressure and temperature conditions. [1] Because of the difficulty of depicting more than three components (as a ternary diagram), usually only the three most important ...
Peridotite, a type of ultramafic rock. Ultramafic rocks (also referred to as ultrabasic rocks, although the terms are not wholly equivalent) are igneous and meta-igneous rocks with a very low silica content (less than 45%), generally >18% MgO, high FeO, low potassium, and are composed of usually greater than 90% mafic minerals (dark colored, high magnesium and iron content).
The calc-alkaline magma series is one of two main subdivisions of the subalkaline magma series, the other subalkaline magma series being the tholeiitic series. A magma series is a series of compositions that describes the evolution of a mafic magma, which is high in magnesium and iron and produces basalt or gabbro, as it fractionally crystallizes to become a felsic magma, which is low in ...
Dike (geology) A magmatic dike (vertical) cross-cutting horizontal layers of sedimentary rock, in Makhtesh Ramon, Israel. In geology, a dike or dyke is a sheet of rock that is formed in a fracture of a pre-existing rock body. Dikes can be either magmatic or sedimentary in origin. Magmatic dikes form when magma flows into a crack then solidifies ...
Gabbro (/ ˈɡæbroʊ / GAB-roh) is a phaneritic (coarse-grained and magnesium- and iron-rich), mafic intrusive igneous rock formed from the slow cooling magma into a holocrystalline mass deep beneath the Earth 's surface. Slow-cooling, coarse-grained gabbro is chemically equivalent to rapid-cooling, fine-grained basalt.
The magmas that produce ultrapotassic rocks are produced by a variety of mechanisms and from a variety of sources, but generally occur in a heterogenous, anomalous, phlogopite-bearing upper mantle. [2] The following conditions are favorable for the formation of ultrapotassic magmas. [3] partial melting at a great depth; low degrees of partial ...
Model of the crystallization of a subsurface magma chamber. The Skaergaard intrusion was formed 56 million years ago during the opening of the North Atlantic Ocean. [1] The intrusion was emplaced beneath the preexisting rock in the region, including plateau basalt and gneiss. [1][2] The intrusion has a general oval shape, which is atypical in ...