Olivine Basalt – Clyde plateau lavas
Collection:
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Microscope
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Microscope

Fact sheet

Olivine Basalt – Clyde plateau lavas

This Carboniferous age olivine basalt forms part of the Clyde Plateau Lavas north of Corrie, Isle of Arran, Scotland. These lavas are linked to similar eruptions in the western part of the Midland Valley of Scotland. Several Clyde plateau lavas outcrop on Arran, and they can be seen near the base of the Carboniferous succession at Corrie.

In thin section the rocks contains high relief fractured phenocrysts of olivine with mid-order birefringence colours, and partially altered to clays along the cracks. Smaller olivine grain appear to have been completely altered to clays and are visible as brown patches of fine grained clays. The rock also contains large pale pink pyroxene phenocrysts exhibiting characteristic cleavage and also some alteration. The phenocrysts sit in a groundmass of 100-200 micron long plagioclase laths and fine grained opaque mineral rich matrix.

Map
55.6493, -5.1404
Description:
Corrie, Isle of Arran, Scotland
Precision:
Good
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
igneous
Category
basalt
Rock-forming mineral
olivine
pyroxene
plagioclase
feldspar
Accessory minerals
apatite
iron oxide
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: