Search:pyroxene -> PYROXENE
pyroxene
p y r o x e n e hex:#112;#121;#114;#111;#120;#101;#110;#101;
The Salt of the World?
- Pyroxene - n. - A common mineral occurring in monoclinic crystals, with a prismatic angle of nearly 90¡, and also in massive forms which are often laminated. It varies in color from white to dark green and black, and includes many varieties differing in color and composition, as diopside, malacolite, salite, coccolite, augite, etc. They are all silicates of lime and magnesia with sometimes alumina and iron. Pyroxene is an essential constituent of many rocks, especially basic igneous rocks, as basalt, gabbro, etc.
- Pyroxene - n. - A common mineral occurring in monoclinic crystals, with a prismatic angle of nearly 90¡, and also in massive forms which are often laminated. It varies in color from white to dark green and black, and includes many varieties differing in color and composition, as diopside, malacolite, salite, coccolite, augite, etc. They are all silicates of lime and magnesia with sometimes alumina and iron. Pyroxene is an essential constituent of many rocks, especially basic igneous rocks, as basalt, gabbro, etc.
- Hypersthene - n. - An orthorhombic mineral of the pyroxene group, of a grayish or greenish black color, often with a peculiar bronzelike luster (schiller) on the cleavage surface.
- Uralitization - n. - The change of pyroxene to amphibole by paramorphism.
- Enstatite - n. - A mineral of the pyroxene group, orthorhombic in crystallization; often fibrous and massive; color grayish white or greenish. It is a silicate of magnesia with some iron. Bronzite is a ferriferous variety.
- Diabase - n. - A basic, dark-colored, holocrystalline, igneous rock, consisting essentially of a triclinic feldspar and pyroxene with magnetic iron; -- often limited to rocks pretertiary in age. It includes part of what was early called greenstone.
- Babingtonite - n. - A mineral occurring in triclinic crystals approaching pyroxene in angle, and of a greenish black color. It is a silicate of iron, manganese, and lime.
- Dolerite - n. - A dark-colored, basic, igneous rock, composed essentially of pyroxene and a triclinic feldspar with magnetic iron. By many authors it is considered equivalent to a coarse-grained basalt.
- Jeffersonite - n. - A variety of pyroxene of olive-green color passing into brown. It contains zinc.
- Bronzite - n. - A variety of enstatite, often having a bronzelike luster. It is a silicate of magnesia and iron, of the pyroxene family.
- Syenite - n. - A granular, crystalline, ingeous rock composed of orthoclase and hornblende, the latter often replaced or accompanied by pyroxene or mica. Syenite sometimes contains nephelite (elaeolite) or leucite, and is then called nephelite (elaeolite) syenite or leucite syenite.
- Lherzolite - n. - An igneous rock consisting largely of chrysolite, with pyroxene and picotite (a variety of spinel containing chromium).
- Gabbro - n. - A name originally given by the Italians to a kind of serpentine, later to the rock called euphotide, and now generally used for a coarsely crystalline, igneous rock consisting of lamellar pyroxene (diallage) and labradorite, with sometimes chrysolite (olivine gabbro).
- Uralite - n. - Amphibole resulting from the alternation of pyroxene by paramorphism. It is not uncommon in massive eruptive rocks.