Igneous Rocks

Nayeem Islam
Lecturer
Department of Civil Engineering
Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman Science & Technology University
Igneous Activity
• Consists of movement of molten rock
inside and outside the earth and the
variety of effects associated
movements.
• For igneous activity to occur heat is
required
• Geothermal gradient is the increase in
temperature with depth
• Range: < 10°C/km to 50°C/km
• Geothermal gradient decreases with
depth after several tens of kilometers
Cause of Igneous Activity
• Magma is the molten or semi-molten
natural material from which all igneous
rocks are derived. Magma is found
beneath the surface of the Earth
• Igneous activity requires magma
• In order to generate magma rocks need
to be melted
• The heat to melt rocks is produced in
two ways: radioactive decay, movement
of rock masses past one another
• Magmas result from the partial melting of portions of the mantle or by
heating parts of the crust that have been carried by below the earth’s surface
during subduction along plate boundaries
• These magmas rise toward the surface because they have greater buoyancy
than surrounding cooler, more viscous or more solid rocks
• When solidified pieces of magma are blown out, they are called pyroclastic
debris. This becomes hardened into rock through percolation of ground water
• Volcanic ash that has hardened into rock is called tuff
• If many relatively large angular blocks of congealed lava are embedded in a
mass of ash and then hardened to rock, the rock is called volcanic breccia
• If such included pieces are mainly rounded fragments, the rock is called
volcanic conglomerate
Igneous Rocks
• Compose 95% of the outermost 10
km of the globe
• Formed from solidification of magma
or lava
Classification of Igneous Rocks
Igneous
Rocks

Intrusive Extrusive

Plutonic Hypabyssal
Intrusive Igneous Rocks
• Intrusive igneous rocks are formed from magma that cools and
solidifies within the crust of a planet
• The magma cools slowly and, as a result, these rocks are coarse-
grained
• Intrusive igneous rocks that form at depth within the crust are termed
plutonic and are usually coarse-grained
• Intrusive igneous rocks that form near the surface are termed
hypabyssal rocks and are medium grained
Plutons
• When rocks have a definite layering, we speak of the magma that
invades them as concordant, if its boundaries are parallel to the
layering
• A pluton is discordant if its boundaries cut across the layering
• A pluton with a thickness that is small relative to its other dimensions
is called a tabular pluton
• Plutons are classified according to their size, shape and relationship to
surrounding rocks
• Any pluton not tabular in shape is called a massive pluton
 Plutons

Sills Dikes Lopolith Laccoliths Batholiths

 Sills
• A tabular concordant pluton is
called a sill
• It may be horizontal, inclined or
vertical depending on the
attitude of the rock structure
with which it is concordant
• It is younger than the rocks that
surround it since it is an intrusive
form
• Thickness: < 1 cm to hundreds of
A sill partially exposed during the quaternary glaciation in
Edinburgh, Scotland
meters
 Dikes
• A tabular discordant pluton
• Originated when magma forced
its way through fracture of
adjacent rocks
• Width: few centimeters to many
meters

Medford Dike in Boston

Lopoliths
• Tabular
concordant
plutons shaped
like a spoon with
both roof and
floor sagging
downward
Laccoliths
• A massive concordant pluton
that was created when magma
pushed up the overlying rock
structures into a dome
Laccolith exposed by erosion of overlying strata in Montana
Batholith
• A large (surface exposure>100 𝑘𝑚2 )discordant pluton that increases
in size as it extends downward
• These areas are exposed to the surface through the process
of erosion accelerated by continental uplift acting over many tens of
millions to hundreds of millions of years
• A pluton that has a smaller surface exposure but shows the other
features of a batholith is called a stock
Idaho Batholith
Characteristics of Batholiths
• They are located in mountain ranges or regions once part of mountain
ranges
• They usually run parallel to axis of mountain ranges
• They have been intruded across folds
• They have irregular dome shaped roofs
• They are composed primarily of granite or granodiorite ( a plutonic
rock of quartz, calcic plagioclase, orthoclase and some mafic
constituents like pyroxene, hornblende, biotite)
• They contain a great volume of rocks
• Thickness of many batholiths is 10 to 15 km
Crystallization of Magma
• Magma is a melt (a liquid solution of elements at high
1 temperature

• As heat decreases, the melt starts to solidify. Mineral

2 grains begin to grow and gases are released

• A liquid mixed with solid and gaseous materials result.

3 This mixture solidifies to form igneous rock
Crystallization of Magma
• Magma does not crystallize like ordinary solutions
• Most solutions of a given composition always crystallize into a solid of
the same composition regardless of conditions during crystallization
• Magma of a given composition may be able to crystallize into a
number of different kinds of rock
Bowen’s Reaction Principle
Differences in end product of magma crystallization depends on:
1. Rate of cooling of magma
2. Whether early formed minerals remain in or settle out of the
remaining liquid during crystallization
According to Bowen:
The first formed minerals undergo continuous modification with the
liquid remaining after they crystallized. This process is called reaction
Bowen’s Reaction Principle
• Bowen arranged rock forming minerals of igneous rocks into reaction
series
• It was found that an important characteristic of a silicate melt is that,
as one mineral develops at a certain temperature, it will be converted
upon cooling into a different mineral by reaction with the liquid
around it
 Reaction
Series

Continuous Discontinuous
Reaction Series
• Continuous Reaction Series: Some early formed minerals are
converted into new minerals by continuously changing their
composition but not their crystalline structure
• Discontinuous Reaction Series: Some early formed minerals react
with the melt to change to new minerals with different compositions
and a different crystalline structure
Fractionation
It is the removal of early formed crystals from an originally
homogeneous magma (for example, by gravity settling) so that these
crystals are prevented from further reaction with the residual melt. The
composition of the remaining melt becomes relatively depleted in
some components and enriched in others, resulting in the precipitation
of a sequence of different minerals
• Ultramafic rocks are igneous and meta-igneous rocks with a very low silica
content, generally >18% MgO, high FeO, low potassium, and are composed
of usually greater than 90% mafic minerals. The Earth's mantle is
composed of ultramafic rocks.
• Mafic is an adjective describing a silicate mineral or igneous rock that is
rich in magnesium and iron, and is thus a portmanteau of magnesium and
ferric. Most mafic minerals are dark in color, and common rock-
forming mafic minerals include olivine, pyroxene, amphibole, and biotite.
• Felsic refers to igneous rocks that are relatively rich in elements that form
feldspar and quartz. It is contrasted with mafic rocks, which are relatively
richer in magnesium and iron.
Bowen’s Reaction Series
• The greater the degree of fractionation, the more extensive the
reaction process
• With high degree of fractionation, the whole reaction series is gone
through and later formed minerals are rich in silica
Gabbro (Ferromagnesian Minerals)

Olivine Basaltic Magma

Granite (Sialic Minerals)
Rate of Crystallization of Magma and Depth
Thickness, m Time Required, year
1 0.033
10 3
100 300
1,000 30,000
10,000 3,000,000
Texture of Igneous Rocks
• Refers to size, shape and arrangement of interlocking mineral grains
in the rock
• Different types of texture in igneous rock are: Granular, Aphanitic,
Glassy, Porphyritic, Pyroclastic, Vesicular, Frothy
Granular/ Phaneritic Texture

A hand specimen of granite with phaneritic (coarse grained) texture. Principal

minerals are Potassium Feldspar, Biotite Mica, and Quartz.
Aphanitic Texture
The dark color is due to
abundant dark colored minerals
(pyroxene, hornblende).
 Porphyritic Texture

A hand specimen of a volcanic rock with porphyritic texture. Larger crystals of plagioclase feldspar (white), are suspended in a
groundmass/matrix of fine grained dark and light minerals (thus the gray color). The plagioclase had already crystallized at depth
in the underlying magma chamber, and was suspended in a magma. When the lava erupted it cooled down rapidly, and formed
the fine grained matrix around the already existing plagioclase crystals.
The cooling occurs so rapidly that no crystals have
time to form. Thus, we have a glass (no ordering like
in minerals) and the rock breaks like glass does, with
a conchoidal fracture.
 Pyroclastic Texture (Volcanic Ash And Tuff Deposits)

Hand specimens of a rhyolite breccia and a rhyolite tuff. Both are volcanic rocks of granitic composition, that formed due
to explosive volcanism. Bits of preexisting volcanic rocks are reduced to rubble, mixed with newly erupted material, and
blown up in the air. As the material settles down we get rocks with an obvious fragmental component (rhyolite breccia),
and if it is very fine we may only see those fragments with a microscope (rhyolite tuff).
Vesicular Texture (Open spaces, bubbles)

If magma contains dissolved

gases, these will tend to
bubble out when the magma
comes to the surface (just
like CO2 bubbles out of a
bottle of Seltzer). Because
cooling is rapid, not all the
gas may escape from the
lava flow and bubbles
(vesicles) are preserved.
 Frothy Texture
(abundant small bubbles, more bubbles than rock)
Hand specimen of pumice with
frothy texture. Pumice is
volcanic glass with abundant
bubbles, so many in fact that
pumice often floats in the
water. The sharp edges of open
bubbles on broken surfaces
make this rock useful as an
abrasive. Pumice stones that
are sold in drugstores for
skincare, work on that principle.
Classification of
igneous rocks
based on texture
and composition

Ferrromagnesians
Light Colored Igneous Rocks (Sialic Rocks)
• Light in color and specific gravity
• Granite and Granodiorite compose of 95% igneous rocks of the
continents that have solidifies from magma
• GRANITE= 2 parts orthoclase feldspar + 1 part quartz + 1 part
plagioclase feldspar + small amount of ferromagnesians
Granite (Granular) Rhyolite
(Aphanitic)

Obsidian
(Glassy)
Dark Colored Igneous Rocks
• 98% of rcoks that have formed from lava are basalt and andesites
• BASALT= 1 part feldspar + 1 part ferromagnesians
Basalt (Aphanitic) Gabbro (Granular)
Columnar basalt at
Szent György Hill,
Hungary
Basalt Columns in
Yellow Stone National
Park, USA
Periodotite (mostly
ferromagnesian
minerals)
Intermediate Types
• Andesite is the aphanitic igneous rock that is intermediate in
composition between granite and basalt
• The granular equivalent of andesite is diorite
Andesite Diorite
Rocks with Porphyritic Texture
• Rock has grains of distinctly different sizes: large phenocrysts
embedded in a fine grained groundmass
• Phenocrysts < 25 % - porphyritic is used to modify rock name like
porphyritic granite
• Phenocrysts > 25 % - rock is called a porphyry like granite porphyry
Porphyritic Granite
Granite Porphyry
Pegmatite
• The solutions which develop late in cooling of magma are called
hydrothermal
• The chief minerals in hydrothermal solutions are potassium feldspar and
quartz
• These crystallize into exceptionally granular igneous rocks called pegmatite
• Simple pegmatite/ granite pegmatite=quartz, orthoclase, small % of mica
• Complex pegmatite=sialic minerals in simple pegmatite (major component)
+ rare minerals (lepidotite, tourmaline, topaz, tantalite, uraninite)
Pegmatite containing
lepidolite, tourmaline,
and quartz from the
White Elephant Mine
in the Black Hills,
South Dakota
Alkali feldspar
granite pegmatite
from Northern
Norway which is
composed of alkali
feldspar (pink),
quartz (gray) and
biotite (black).
Width of view 50
cm.