Chapter 04 Vocab Flashcards
Assimilation
The process of magma contamination in which blocks of wall rock fall into a magma chamber and dissolve.
Batholith
A vast composite, intrusive, igneous rock body up to several hundred km long and 100 km wide, formed by the intrusion of numerous plutons in the same region.
Bowen’s Reaction Series
The sequence in which different silicate minerals crystallize during the progressive cooling of a melt.
Dike
A tabular (wall-shaped) intrusion of rock that cuts across the layering of country rock.
Extrusive Igneous Rock
Rock that forms by the freezing of lava above ground, after it flows or explodes out (extrudes) onto the surface and comes into contact with the atmosphere or ocean.
Flood Basalt
Vast sheets of basalt that spread from a volcanic vent over an extensive surface of land; they may form where a rift develops above a continental hot spot, and where lava is particularly hot and has low viscosity.
Fractional Crystallization
The process by which a magma becomes progressively more silicic as it cools, because early-formed crystals settle out.
Geotherm
The change in temperature with depth in the Earth.
Glassy Igneous Rock
Igneous rock consisting entirely of glass, or of tiny crystals surrounded by a glass matrix.
Hot-Spot Volcano
An isolated volcano not caused by movement at a plate boundary, but rather by the melting of a mantle plume.
Igneous Rock
Rock that forms when hot molten rock (magma or lava) cools and freezes solid.
Intrusive Igneous Rock
Rock formed by the freezing of magma underground.
Large Igneous Province (LIP)
A region in which huge volumes of lava and/or ash erupted over a relatively short interval of geologic time.
Lava
Molten rock that has flowed out onto the Earth’s surface.
Lava Flow
Sheets or mounds of lava that flow onto the ground surface or sea floor in molten form and then solidify.