Charnockite ( /ˈtʃɑːrnəkaɪt/) is applied to any orthopyroxene-bearing quartz-feldspar rock,

formed at high temperature and pressure, commonly found in granulite facies metamorphic
regions, as an end-member of the charnockite series.[1]

Charnockite series
The charnockite suite or series is a particularly widespread form of granofels. Granofels are one
of the few non-foliated rocks to form under relatively high temperatures and pressures. This
combination is generated only deep in the crust by tectonic forces that operate on a grand scale,
so granofels is a product of regional, rather than contact, metamorphism. It is formed mostly
from the granite clan of rocks, or occasionally from thoroughly reconstituted clays and shales. It
is of wide distribution and great importance in India, Ceylon, Madagascar and Africa. It was
named by geologist T. H. Holland in 1893 after the tombstone of Job Charnock, in St John's
Church in Calcutta, India, which is made of this rock.[2]

Composition
The charnockite series includes rocks of many different types, some being felsic and rich in
quartz and microcline, others mafic and full of pyroxene and olivine, while there are also
intermediate varieties corresponding mineralogically to norites, quartz-norites and diorites. A
special feature, recurring in many members of the group, is the presence of a strongly pleochroic,
reddish or green orthopyroxene (formerly known as hypersthene). The alkali feldpars in the
group are generally perthites, with intergrowths of albite and orthoclase or microcline. Rocks of
the charnockite series may be named by adding orthopyroxene to the normal igneous
nomenclature (e.g. orthopyroxene-granite), but specific names are in widespread use such as
norite, mangerite, enderbite, jotunite, farsundite, opdalite and charnockite (in the strict sense);
equivalents of gabbro, monzonite, tonalite, monzodiorite, monzogranite, granodiorite and
granite.[1]

Geology

Incipient Charnockite, Dronning Maud Land, Antarctica

All charnockites were once thought to be igneous, but it is now recognized that many are
metamorphic, because, despite the high temperatures and pressures, the original protolith never
actually melted. However, some orthopyroxene-bearing granites with distinct igneous features
exist, and these rocks also fall within the definition of charnockite.[3] Many of the minerals of these
rocks are schillerized, as they contain minute platy or rod-shaped inclusions, disposed parallel to
certain crystallographic planes or axes. The reflection of light from the surfaces of these inclusions
gives the minerals often a peculiar appearance, e.g. the quartz is blue and opalescent, the feldspar
has a milky shimmer like moonshine, the hypersthene has a bronzy metalloidal gleam. Very often
the different rock types occur in close association as one set forms bands alternating with another
set, or veins traversing it, and where one facies appears the others also usually are found.

The term charnockite in this sense is consequently not the name of a rock, but of an assemblage of
rock types. The assemblage is connected by origin, the differentiation of the same parent magma.
The banded structure which these rocks commonly present in the field is only in a small measure
due to plastic deformation, but is to a large extent original, and has been produced by flow in a
viscous crystallizing intrusive magma, together with differentiation or segregation of the mass into
bands of different chemical and mineralogical composition. There have also been, of course, earth
movements acting on the solid rock at a later time and injection of dikes both parallel to and across
the primary foliation.

Distribution

The charnockites are widely distributed in the southern hemisphere. They, or rocks very similar to
them, also occur in Norway, France, Sweden, Germany, Scotland and North America, though in
these countries they have been mostly described as pyroxene granulites, pyroxene gneisses,
anorthosites, or other names. They are typically of Proterozoic age.

In India they form the Nilgiri Hills, the Shevaroys, the Biligirirangan Hills[4] and part of the Western
Ghats, extending southward to Kanyakumari and reappearing in Sri Lanka.

A commercial variety called green ubatuba is found in Brazil.[5]