Type of volcanic rock containing large porphyritic crystals of quartz
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Quartz porphyry from the island of Alnö, Sweden. Phenocrysts of clear glassy rounded quartz and white orthoclase feldspar are set in a fine-grained matrix. Sample is just over 10 cm long
Quartz-porphyry, in layman's terms, is a type of volcanic (
These rocks are classified as hemi-crystalline acid rocks.
Structure
The
vitreous blebs, which are crystals, double hexagonalpyramids, with their edges and corners rounded by resorption or corrosion. Under the microscope they are often seen to contain rounded enclosures of the ground-mass or fluid cavities, which are frequently negative crystals with regular outlines resembling those of perfect quartz crystals. Many of the latter contain liquid carbonic acid and a bubble of gas that may exhibit vibratile motion under high magnifying powers.[3]
Variants
In addition to quartz there are usually
kaolin and muscovite throughout their substance. Their crystals are larger than those of quartz and sometimes attain a length of two inches. Not uncommonly scales of biotite are visible in the specimens, being hexagonal plates, which may be weathered into a mixture of chlorite and epidote.[3]
Common minerals
Apatite, magnetite, and zircon, all in small but frequently perfect crystals, are almost universal minerals of the quartz-porphyries. The ground-mass is finely crystalline and to the unaided eye has usually a dull aspect resembling common earthenware; it is grey, green, reddish or white. Often it is streaked or banded by flow during cooling, but as a rule these rocks are not vesicular.[3]
Two main types may be recognized by means of the microscope; the felsitic and the microcrystalline. In the former the ingredients are so fine-grained that in the thinnest slices they cannot be determined by means of the microscope. Some of these rocks show perlitic or spherulitic structure, and such rocks were probably originally
polarized light. The microcrystalline ground-masses are those that can be resolved into their component minerals in thin slices by use of the microscope. They prove to consist essentially of quartz and feldspars, which are often in grains of quite irregular shape (microgranitic).[3]
In other cases these two minerals are in graphic intergrowth, often forming radiate growths of spherulites consisting of fibers of extreme tenuity; this type is known as granophyric. There is another group in which the matrix contains small rounded or shapeless patches of
rhyolitic quartz-porphyries show on their weathered surfaces numerous globular projections. They may be several inches in diameter, and vary from this size down to a minute fraction of an inch. When struck with a hammer they may detach readily from the matrix as if their margins were defined by a fissure. If they are broken across their inner portions are often seen to be filled with secondary quartz, chalcedony or agate: some of them have a central cavity, often with deposits of quartz crystals; they also frequently exhibit a succession of rounded cracks or dark lines occupied by secondary products. Rocks having these structures are common in north Wales and Cumberland; they occur also in Jersey, the Vosges and Hungary. It has been proposed to call them pyromerides.[3]
Much discussion has taken place regarding the origin of these spheroids, but it is generally admitted that most of them were originally
Palaeozoic lavas. All Tertiary acid lavas are included under rhyolites. The intrusive quartz-porphyries are equally well described as granite-porphyries.[3]
