About Igneous Rocks

There are three great categories of rocks, named igneous, sedimentary and metamorphic, and
most of the time they're simple to tell apart. Although the three rock categories are connected in
the endless rock cycle, igneous rocks are traditionally taught first.
How to Tell Igneous Rocks

The main thing about igneous rocks is that they were once hot enough to melt. The following
traits are all related to that.

Because their mineral grains grew together tightly as the melt cooled, they
are relatively strong rocks.

They're made of primary minerals that are mostly black, white or gray. Any
other colors they may have are pale.

Their textures generally look like something that was baked in an oven. The
even texture of coarse-grained granite is familiar from building stones or
kitchen counters. Fine-grained lava may look like black bread (including gas
bubbles) or dark peanut brittle (including larger crystals).

Origin of Igneous Rocks

The word "igneous" comes from the Latin for fire, and what igneous rocks have in common is
that they formed by the cooling and crystallization of a melt. This material may have been lava
erupted at the Earth's surface, or magma (unerupted lava) at depths of up to a few kilometers, or
magma in deeper bodies (plutons). Those three different settings create three main types of
igneous rocks. Rock formed of lava is called extrusive, rock from shallow magma is called
intrusive and rock from deep magma is called plutonic. The deeper the magma, the slower it
cools and the larger the mineral crystals that form in it.
Igneous rocks form in three main places: where the tectonic plates pull apart (at mid-ocean
ridges), where plates come together (at subduction zones) and where continents are pushed

together, making the Earth's crust thicker and allowing it to heat to melting. To learn more about
how igneous rocks form, see About Magma and About Volcanism.
People commonly think of lava and magma as a liquid, like molten metal, but geologists find that
magma is usually a musha partially melted fluid loaded with mineral crystals. As it cools,
magma crystallizes into a series of minerals, some of which crystallize sooner than others. Not
just that, but as the minerals crystallize, they leave the remaining magma with a changed
chemical composition. Thus a body of magma evolves as it cools, and it also evolves as it moves
through the crust, interacting with other rocks.
Once magma erupts as lava, it freezes quickly and preserves a record of its history underground
that geologists can decipher. Igneous petrology is a very complex field, and this article is only
the barest outline.
Igneous Rock Textures

The three types of igneous rocks differ in their textures, starting with the size of the mineral
grains. Extrusive rocks cool quickly (over periods of seconds to months) and have invisible or
microscopic grains, or an aphanitic texture. Intrusive rocks cool more slowly (over thousands of
years) and have visible grains of small to medium size, or phaneritic texture. Plutonic rocks cool
over millions of years and can have grains as large as pebbleseven meters across.
Because they solidified from a fluid state, igneous rocks tend to have a uniform fabric without
layers, and the mineral grains are packed together tightly. Think of the texture of something you
would bake in the oven. However, in many igneous rocks large mineral crystals "float" in a finegrained groundmass. The large grains are called phenocrysts, and a rock with phenocrysts is
called a porphyry; that is, it has a porphyritic texture. Phenocrysts are minerals that solidified
earlier than the rest of the rock, and they are important clues to the rock's history.
Some extrusive rocks have distinctive textures. Obsidian, formed when lava hardens quickly, has
a glassy texture. Pumice and scoria are volcanic froth, puffed up by millions of gas bubbles
giving them a vesicular texture. Tuff is a rock made entirely of volcanic ash, fallen from the air
or avalanched down a volcano's sides. It has a pyroclastic texture. And pillow lava is a lumpy
formation created by extruding lava underwater.
Igneous Rock Types: Basalt, Granite and More

Igneous rocks are classified by the minerals they contain. The main minerals in igneous rocks are
hard, primary ones: feldspar, quartz, amphiboles and pyroxenes (together called "dark minerals"
by geologists), and olivine along with the softer mineral mica.
The two best-known igneous rock types are basalt and granite, which have distinctly different
compositions and textures. Basalt is the dark, fine-grained stuff of many lava flows and magma

intrusions. Its dark minerals are rich in magnesium (Mg) and iron (Fe), hence basalt is called a
mafic rock. So basalt is mafic and either extrusive or intrusive. Granite is the light, coarsegrained rock formed at depth and exposed after deep erosion. It is rich in feldspar and quartz
(silica) and hence is called a felsic rock. So granite is felsic and plutonic.
Basalt and granite account for the great majority of igneous rocks. Ordinary people, even
ordinary geologists, use the names freely. (Stone dealers call any plutonic rock at all "granite.")
But igneous petrologists use many more names. They generally talk about basaltic and granitic
or granitoid rocks among themselves and out in the field, because it takes laboratory work to
determine an exact rock type according to the official classifications. True granite and true basalt
are narrow subsets of these categories. Get deeper into classification in this article.
A few of the less common igneous rock types can be recognized by non-specialists. For instance
a dark-colored plutonic mafic rock, the deep version of basalt, is called gabbro. A light-colored
intrusive or extrusive felsic rock, the shallow version of granite, is called felsite or rhyolite. And
there is a suite of ultramafic rocks with even more dark minerals and even less silica than basalt.
Peridotite is the foremost of those.
Where Igneous Rocks Are Found

The deep sea floor (the oceanic crust) is made almost entirely of basaltic rocks, with peridotite
underneath in the mantle. Basalts are also erupted above the Earth's great subduction zones,
either in volcanic island arcs or along the edges of continents. However, continental magmas
tend to be less basaltic and more granitic (learn more about arc volcanism).
The continents are the exclusive home of granitic rocks. Nearly everywhere on the continents, no
matter what rocks are on the surface, you can drill down and reach granitoid eventually. In
general, granitic rocks are less dense than basaltic rocks, and thus the continents actually float
higher than the oceanic crust on top of the ultramafic rocks of the Earth's mantle. The behavior
and histories of granitic rock bodies are among geology's deepest and most intricate mysteries.
Identification of Igneous Rocks
Grain
Size

Usual
Color

Other

Composition

Rock
Type

fine

dark

glassy appearance

lava glass

Obsidian

fine

light

many small bubbles

lava froth from sticky lava

Pumice

fine

dark

many large bubbles

lava froth from fluid lava

Scoria

fine or
mixed

light

contains quartz

high-silica lava

Felsite

fine or
mixed

medium

between felsite and

basalt

medium-silica lava

Andesite

fine or
mixed

dark

has no quartz

low-silica lava

Basalt

mixed

any color

large grains in finegrained matrix

large grains of feldspar, quartz,

pyroxene or olivine

Porphyry

coarse

light

wide range of color

and grain size

feldspar and quartz with minor mica,

Granite
amphibole or pyroxene

coarse

light

like granite but

without quartz

feldspar with minor mica, amphibole

Syenite
or pyroxene

coarse

light to
medium

little or no alkali
feldspar

plagioclase and quartz with dark

minerals

Tonalite

coarse

medium to
little or no quartz
dark

low-calcium plagioclase and dark

minerals

Diorite

coarse

medium to no quartz; may have

dark
olivine

high-calcium plagioclase and dark

minerals

Gabbro

coarse

dark

dense; always has

olivine

olivine with amphibole and/or

pyroxene

Peridotite

coarse

dark

dense

mostly pyroxene with olivine and

amphibole

Pyroxenite

coarse

green

dense

at least 90% olivine

Dunite

very
coarse

any color

usually in small
intrusive bodies

typically granitic

Pegmatite

INTRODUCTION TO IGNEOUS ROCKS

Formation of Igneous Rocks

Igneous rocks form when molten (hot, liquid) elements cool and solidify into crystals.
The crystals that form are rich in the elements silicon and oxygen, by far the most
abundant elements comprising Earth's crust and mantle. When bonded together,
silicon and oxygen form the silicate ion, the building block for almost all igneous
minerals. The igneous rocks pictured in this web site are composed of silicate
minerals.
The classification of igneous rocks is based on two important aspects of all rocks on
Earth, their texture and composition, which are discussed in detail below. Use this
classification chart to help you identify your igneous rocks.

Textures of Igneous Rocks

The texture of an igneous rock is determined by its rate of cooling. Molten elements
trapped underground, called magma, requires from several days to thousands of years
to crystallize. To learn more about magma and its effects on rocks comprising Earth's
crust, see the intrusions/plutons page. Molten rock erupted at Earth's surface, referred
to as lava, can solidify in few seconds or over the course of several days. For more
information about lava and volcanoes, see the volcanoes and lava flows page. The
very different rates of cooling for magma and lava lead to the development of two basic
textures of igneous rocks, described below. For convenience of presentation the
igneous rocks are divided into intrusive rocks (also called plutonic rocks) which form
underground, and volcanic rocks (also called extrusive rocks) which form at Earth's
surface.
coarse-grained texture
Intrusive rocks, formed due to slow cooling of magma
underground, are composed of large crystals because crystals had a long time to grow
before the crystallization process was finished. This forms a coarse-grained or
phaneritic texture. The pictures below illustrate this coarse-grained texture. Also, note
the interlocking nature of the silicate mineral crystals comprising this rock.

granite hand sample composed of large, interlocking mineral crystals

granite outcrop in San Gabriel Mountains, California

fine-grained texture
Extrusive rocks, formed due to rapid cooling of lava at Earth's
surface, are composed of tiny crystals or even unordered atoms because crystallization
was completed within a few seconds, hours, or perhaps days. The resulting finegrained or aphanitic texture is characteristic of volcanic igneous rocks. The rocks
shown below show this fine-grained texture.

basalt hand sample composed of tiny, interlocking mineral crystals

rapidly cooling hot lava

special igneous textures

glassy texture - forms as lava cools very rapidly at Earth's surface, in a matter of
seconds or a few minutes. The resulting rock is composed of unordered atoms forming
a non-crystalline mass, such as the volcanic rock obsidian shown below. Since
obsidian is not composed of crystals, it is not composed of minerals, technically
speaking. This makes it difficult to assign obsidian to a particular composition (felsic,
intermediate or mafic), confounding geologists who feel compelled to categorize mother
nature!

obsidian handsample

volcanic rock outcrop with both glassy and frothy textures; Jeff Brenner
for scale
frothy texture - forms as gas-charged lava cools very rapidly at Earth's surface. An
example of such a volcanic rock is pumice, which is glassy like obsidian, but full of holes
formed when trapped gasses expanded as the lava solidified. Like obsidian, pumice is
difficult to classify according to standard compositional categories.

pumice hand sample; so full of air that it floats on water porphyritic texture forms due to two cycles of cooling, initially very slowly underground, then rapidly at
Earth's surface. The rocks shown below each contain a combination of large and
small crystals. In the first, some large white crystals formed as magma began to slowly

crystallize underground. The rest of this rock, the gray matrix, is composed of tiny
crystals which formed as the still-molten magma was erupted at Earth's surface where it
cooled very rapidly.

andesite hand sample illustrating the combination of coarse and fine

igneous-rock textures

another igneous-rock hand sample illustrating the porphyritic texture

pyroclastic texture - forms as an explosive volcanic eruption mixes fragments of the
volcano with hot ash in the atmosphere. As this hot combination of tiny ash particles
and larger, angular fragments settles to the ground, they blanket the Earth's surface and
weld together. Such spectacular events can wipe out all life forms in the affected
region surrounding a volcano! The volcanic tuff shown below is mainly composed of
ash, and the volcanic breccia contains a lot of large, angular fragments.
Click on photos to see enlarged views.

handsamples of rhyolite - volcanic tuff and breccia

volcanic outcrop in New Mexico showing the rough, pyroclastic texture

Composition of Igneous Rocks

The composition of an igneous rock is determined by the minerals present in a sample.
The mineralogy of an igneous rock is a product of the combination of silicon dioxide with
other elements originally present within a body of magma or lava. The variations in
compositions of igneous rocks is, in part, a result of the gradual cooling of a body of
magma underground. This slow process allows minerals that form at a high
temperature, like olivine and calcium-rich plagioclase feldspar, to crystallize and

separate from the remaining magma. Over time, this process alters the magma's
composition, forming progressively lower-temperature minerals like quartz and
potassium feldspar. This series of chemical changes was observed by N.L. Bowen,
and it is referred to as Bowen's Reaction Series.

Igneous rocks are divided into three basic compositional groups, with the rare ultramafic
rocks not included in the descriptions below. Refer back to the Bowens Reaction
Series chart, as you scroll through the descriptions and photographs of the different
igneous-rock compositions.
felsic composition - composed mostly of the minerals quartz and potassium feldspar
which are generally white to pink in color. Minor mineral components of granite can be
amphibole and biotite mica, both of which are black in color. The rocks below are felsic
in composition.

granite hand sample with minerals identified

granitic landscape; Diane Kawahata relaxing in Joshua Tree National Park

intermediate composition - composed mostly of the minerals amphibole and sodiumrich plagioclase feldspar, with some quartz and pyroxene possible. Intermediate
igneous rocks usually contain a combination of light and dark-colored minerals, so they
have a salt and pepper coloration (diorite), or they are simply gray in color (andesite).
The rocks shown below are intermediate in composition.

diorite hand sample with minerals identified

andesite hand sample

rhyolite outcrop; Bandelier National Monument cliff dwellings; Bob Careless for scale
mafic composition - composed mostly of the minerals pyroxene, calcium-rich
plagioclase feldspar and olivine. Mafic rocks are usually black to dark green in color.
The rocks below are mafic in composition.

gabbro hand sample with minerals identified

basalt hand sample with its characteristic black color

Igneous Rocks
What are Igneous Rocks?

Igneous rocks are formed from the

solidification of molten rock material. There are
two basic types: 1) intrusive igneous rocks
such as diorite, gabbro, granite and pegmatite
that solidify below Earth's surface; and 2)
extrusive igneous rocks such as andesite,
basalt, obsidian, pumice, rhyolite and scoria
that solidify on or above Earth's surface.
Pictures and brief descriptions of some
common igneous rock types are shown on this
page.

Pegmatite is a light-colored, extremely coarsegrained intrusive igneous rock. It forms near the
margins of a magma chamber during the final
phases of magma chamber crystallization. It often
contains rare minerals that are not found in other
parts of the magma chamber. The specimen shown
above is about two inches (five centimeters)
across.

Andesite is a fine-grained, extrusive igneous

rock composed mainly of plagioclase with
other minerals such as hornblende, pyroxene
and biotite. The specimen shown is about two
inches (five centimeters) across.

Peridotite is a coarse-grained intrusive igneous

rock that is composed almost entirely of olivine. It
may contain small amounts of amphibole, feldspar,
quartz or pyroxene. The specimen shown above is
about two inches (five centimeters) across.

Basalt is a fine-grained, dark-colored

extrusive igneous rock composed mainly of
plagioclase and pyroxene. The specimen
shown is about two inches (five centimeters)
across.

Pumice is a light-colored vesicular igneous rock. It

forms through very rapid solidification of a melt.
The vesicular texture is a result of gas trapped in
the melt at the time of solidification. The specimen
shown above is about two inches (five centimeters)
across.

Diorite is a coarse-grained, intrusive

igneous rock that contains a mixture of
feldspar, pyroxene, hornblende and
sometimes quartz. The specimen
shown above is about two inches (five
centimeters) across.

Gabbro is a coarse-grained, dark colored,

intrusive igneous rock that contains feldspar,
augite and sometimes olivine. The specimen
shown above is about two inches (five
centimeters) across.

Rhyolite is a light-colored, fine-grained,

extrusive igneous rock that typically contains
quartz and feldspar minerals. The specimen
shown above is about two inches (five
centimeters) across.

Scoria is a dark-colored, vesicular, extrusive

igneous rock. The vesicles are a result of trapped
gas within the melt at the time of solidification. It
often forms as a frothy crust on the top of a lava
flow or as material ejected from a volcanic vent
and solidifying while airborne. The specimen shown
above is about

Granite is a coarse-grained, light colored,

intrusive igneous rock that contains mainly
quartz and feldspar minerals. The specimen
above is about two inches (five centimeters)
across.

Obsidian is a dark-colored volcanic glass that

forms from the very rapid cooling of molten rock
material. It cools so rapidly that crystals do not
form. The specimen shown above is about two
inches (five centimeters) across. two inches (five
centimeters) across.