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Porphyritic texture in a granite. This is an intrusive porphyritic rock. The white, square feldspar phenocrysts are much larger than crystals in the surrounding matrix; eastern Sierra Nevada, Rock Creek Canyon, California. A porphyritic volcanic sand grain, as seen under the petrographic microscope. The large grain in the middle is of a much ...
Porphyritic texture is particularly common in andesite, with the most prominent phenocrysts typically composed of plagioclase feldspar. [9] [10] Plagioclase has almost the same density as basaltic magma, so plagioclase phenocrysts are likely to remain suspended in the magma rather than settling out. [11]
This porphyritic texture is indicative of multi-stage cooling of magma. For example, porphyritic andesite will have large phenocrysts of plagioclase in a fine-grained matrix. Also in South Africa , diamonds are often mined from a matrix of weathered clay -like rock ( kimberlite ) called "yellow ground".
In geology, texture or rock microstructure [1] refers to the relationship between the materials of which a rock is composed. [2] The broadest textural classes are crystalline (in which the components are intergrown and interlocking crystals), fragmental (in which there is an accumulation of fragments by some physical process), aphanitic (in which crystals are not visible to the unaided eye ...
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 .
Photomicrograph of a porphyritic-aphanitic felsic rock, from the Middle Eocene in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia. Plagioclase phenocrysts (white) and hornblende phenocryst (dark; intergrown with plagioclase) are set in a fine matrix of plagioclase laths that show flow structure.
Porphyritic textures develop when conditions during the cooling of magma change relatively quickly. The earlier formed minerals will have formed slowly and remain as large crystals, whereas, sudden cooling causes the rapid crystallization of the remainder of the melt into a fine-grained (aphanitic) matrix .
Cross-polarized light microscope image of an intergrowth of quartz and alkali feldspar in a granophyre (Muskox intrusion), as seen in thin section (Long dimension is 1.5 mm) Granophyre ( / ˈ ɡ r æ n ə f aɪər / GRAN -ə-fire ; [ 1 ] [ 2 ] from granite and porphyry ) is a subvolcanic rock that contains quartz and alkali feldspar in ...