Hydrothermal breccia - Wheal Remfry
Collection:
UK Virtual Microscope
Click the microscope button to view a thin section for this sample.
Microscope
Click the microscope button to view a thin section for this sample.
Microscope
Click the object button to view an object rotation for this sample.
Object

Fact sheet

Hydrothermal breccia - Wheal Remfry

The Wheal Remfry china clay pit lies at the western end of the St Austell granite, Cornwall and it is thought that granite lies not far below the base of the pit. The clay pit yields white clay suitable for use in the ceramic industry rather than the more refined clays used in paper making. This explosion breccia comes from a large exposure at the western end of the pit, and demonstrates the extensive hydrothermal activity and very high quantities of hot fluids that passed through the rocks. This rock was once sediment but was fractured by high pressure fluids.

In thin section the rock is dominated by fine-grained bands of tourmaline and quartz that have replaced the original detrital minerals of the sediment. At this scale, the rock consists of a series of fragments welded together and metasomatised by the fluids.

Additional images
 
  • breccia - width 18.5 cm
  • breccia - width 4.5 cm
  • breccia - width 7 cm
  • breccia - width 14 cm
Map
 
50.38229, -4.92117
Description:
Wheal Remfry china clay pit, St Austell, Cornwall
Precision:
Good
About this collection
 
UK Virtual Microscope

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

Collection: UK Virtual Microscope
Type
igneous
Category
breccia
Rock-forming mineral
tourmaline
quartz
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:

More from this collection

UK Virtual Microscope