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According to the Encyclopædia Britannica, color indices, 0–50 are felsic, 50–90 are mafic, and 90–100 are ultramafic. [6] An online geology textbook provides an example of the use of another classification scheme, in which color indices 0–15 are felsic, 15–45 are intermediate, 45–85 are mafic, and 85–100 are ultramafic. [9]
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).
S-type granites, like other granite types, can vary in crystal size from aphanitic to phaneritic; crystal size distributions include porphyritic, seriate, and rarely equigranular textures. Mafic xenoliths/enclaves can be found in S-type granites. Granophyric textures can be found in S-type granites, particularly leucocratic ones.
Mafic enclave in granite rock, at Yosemite National Park Granite forms from silica-rich ( felsic ) magmas. Felsic magmas are thought to form by addition of heat or water vapor to rock of the lower crust , rather than by decompression of mantle rock, as is the case with basaltic magmas. [ 19 ]
The biotites in I-type granites are greener in general than those in S-type, both in hand sample and in plane polarized light. More mafic composition granites, those with a higher color index, contain more hornblende and biotite. [1] Hornblende is a typical I-type granite mineral which never occurs in S-type granite.
Alkali feldspar granite, some varieties of which are called 'red granite', [1] is a felsic igneous rock and a type of granite rich in the mineral potassium feldspar (K-spar). It is a dense rock with a phaneritic texture. The abundance of K-spar gives the rock a predominant pink to reddish hue; peppered with minor amounts of black minerals. [2] [3]
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.
The mafic minerals in the TTG rock body, possibly biotite, were weathered, which introduced a brownish coating on the TTG rock surface. Tonalite–trondhjemite–granodiorite ( TTG ) rocks are intrusive rocks with typical granitic composition ( quartz and feldspar ) but containing only a small portion of potassium feldspar .