Granophyre with clasts - Isle of Rum
Collection:
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Microscope
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Microscope

Fact sheet

Granophyre with clasts - Isle of Rum

This sample of intrusion breccia from Harris Bay on the Isle of Rum, Scotland, consists of fragments of thermally-altered coarse grained basic rocks in a finer grained porphyritic microgranitic matrix.  In this area of Rum, silicic country rocks (Torridonian sandstones, Lewisian gneisses, and silicic members of Phase1 of the Central Complex) show varying degrees of melting and mobilisation along the contact with the gabbros and ultrabasic rocks. The source of the rheomorphic melt was porphyritic microgranite (Western Granite) in this case.

The thin section is divided into two different rock types. The finer grained areas of microgranite consist of randomly oriented plagioclase and altered alkali feldspar. The central area composed of relic plagioclase phenocrysts with distinctive ‘fingerprint’ textures caused by reaction and partial melting.

Additional images
  • Granophyre - width 2.6 cm
  • Granophyre - width 12 cm
  • Granophyre - width 12 cm
About this collection

The United Kingdom Virtual Microscope (UKVM) collection consists of igneous, sedimentary and metamorphic rocks from around the UK.

It is intended as a teaching resource, helping to tell the story of the common rock types and how they form, and reflecting the history of the UK at the margins of the continent of Europe. The collection is a series of teaching sets, for example igneous rocks from the North Atlantic Igneous Province and SW England; high-temperature metamorphic rocks from Scotland and low-temperature metamorphic rocks from Wales; and sedimentary rocks, including English limestones and sandstones.

Sample details

Type
metamorphic
Category
granophyre
Rock-forming mineral
quartz
alkali feldspar
plagioclase
feldspar
Category guide  
Category Guide
Title
Refers to any word or phrase that appears in the individual rock names. Names are generally descriptive; they allow users to search for broad terms like ‘granite’ as well as more specific names such as ‘breccia’. However, the adjacent descriptions of the specimens captures a wider range of general words and phrases and is a more powerful search tool.
Description
Refers to any word or phrase that appears anywhere in the descriptions of the specimens
Accessory minerals
Minerals that occur in very low abundance in a rock. They are usually not visible with the naked eye and contribute perhapssver, they often dominate the rare elements such as platinum group metals.
Rock-forming minerals
Minerals that make up the bulk of all rock samples and are also the ones used in rock classi?cation.
Timescale
Selecting one or more period, for example 'Jurassic'.
Theme
A term used to group together related samples that are not already gathered into a single Collection. For instance, there is a ‘SW England granites’ theme that includes such rock types as granite, hydrothermal breccia, skarn and vein samples.
Category
A general term used to label a rock sample. It is a useful way of grouping similar samples throughout a collection. Category names are often, but not exclusively, common rock names (e.g. granite, basalt, dolerite, gabbro, greisen, skarn, gneiss, amphibolite, limestone, sandstone).
Owner
The owner of the sample that appears in the collection. For example, NASA owns all the samples that appear in the Moon Rocks collection
We would like to thank the following for the use of this sample: