Trachyte

Anatolian relief
MFA# 84.67

Description

From Wikipedia: Trachyte is an igneous, volcanic rock with an aphanitic to porphyritic texture. The mineral assemblage consists of essential alkali feldspar; relatively minor plagioclase and quartz or a feldspathoid such as nepheline may also be present. (See the QAPF diagram). Biotite, clinopyroxene and olivine are common accessory minerals. Chemically, trachyte contains less SiO2 than rhyolite and more (Na2O plus K2O) than dacite. These chemical differences are consistent with the position of trachyte in the TAS classification, and they account for the feldspar-rich mineralogy of the rock type. Trachytes usually consist mainly of sanidine feldspar. Very often they have minute irregular steam cavities which make the broken surfaces of specimens of these rocks rough and irregular, and from this character they have derived their name. It was first given to certain rocks of this class from Auvergne, and was long used in a much wider sense than that defined above, in fact it included quartz-trachytes (now known as liparites and rhyolites) and oligoclase-trachytes, which are now more properly assigned to andesites. The trachytes are often described as being the volcanic equivalents of the plutonic syenites. Their dominant mineral, sanidine feldspar, very commonly occurs in two generations, i.e. both as large well-shaped porphyritic crystals and in smaller imperfect rods or laths forming a finely crystalline groundmass. With this there is practically always a smaller amount of plagioclase, usually oligoclase; but the potash felspar (sanidine) often contains a considerable proportion of the sodium feldspar (albite), and has rather the characteristics of anorthoclase or cryptoperthite than of pure sanidine. Rhomb porphyry is an example with usually large porphyritic rhomb shaped phenocrysts embedded in a very fine grained matrix.