106

Called alkali basalts, which are associated with many oceanic islands and rift valleys on
continents, plot in field 10. Many volcanic rocks contain glass, wich should be mentioned in a
rock description. Depending on the percetange of glass present, the rock can be described
variously as glass-bearing (0-20%) glass, glass - rich (20-50%) , glassy (50-80%), or by a special
name such as obsidian ( for a silica-rich glass). If the glass content is from to 100%.
Mos hypabyssal rocks have similar grain sizes to volcanic rocks and are equally difficult
to classivy. Volcanic rocks and are equally difficult to classivy. Volcanic rocks names are used to
describe most of them. Basaltic dikes, if thick enough, my be medium-grained and the rock
commoly develops a texture known as ophitic , in wich laths of plagioclase are embedded in
larger crystals of pyroxene or olivine. The synonymous terms dolerite and diabase are used for
such rocks. They plot in fields 10 and 10 of fig 4-1.
One distinct group of hypabyssal rocks that have their own nomenclature is the
lamprophyres, wich are melanocritic, phorphyritic rocks containing phenocrysts of a hidrous
mafic mineral, biotite or amphibole, and possibly clinopiroxene and olivine in a fine-grained
groundmass. Feldspars, is present, occur only in the groundmass, but many lamprobhyres contain
no feldspar at all. These have such low contents of silica that felspathoids or melilite is present
instead . the classification of lamprophyres is given in table 4-5

Because volcanic and hipabyssal rock from on or near the earths survace where they can
interact wich circulating groundwater, their feldspar are commonly hidrothermally altered to
sericite or saussurite ( zoisite or epidote ) and their mafic mineral to chlorite, serpentine, or talc.
Despite this alteration the rock should be classified according to what the rocks