Classify the following textures as intrusive and intrusive: glassy, aphanitic, phaneritic, porphyritic, pyroclastic, and vehicular

1 answer

It looks like there might be a typo in your question. I assume you meant to classify the textures as intrusive and extrusive rather than "intrusive and intrusive." Here’s the classification:

Intrusive Textures:

  1. Phaneritic - Coarse-grained texture, where crystals are large enough to be seen with the naked eye, indicating slow cooling beneath the Earth's surface.
  2. Porphyritic - Characterized by larger crystals (phenocrysts) embedded in a finer-grained matrix. It can form from both intrusive and extrusive processes but is often associated with intrusive activity.

Extrusive Textures:

  1. Glassy - No crystal structure is visible due to rapid cooling, typically occurring when lava cools quickly (e.g., obsidian).
  2. Aphanitic - Fine-grained texture in which crystals are too small to be seen without a microscope, indicating rapid cooling at or near the surface.
  3. Pyroclastic - Composed of volcanic ash, pumice, and other fragments ejected during explosive volcanic eruptions, typically resulting from extrusive processes.
  4. (The term "vehicular" does not seem to relate to geological textures. If you meant another term, please clarify.)

In summary, phaneritic and porphyritic are associated with intrusive processes, while glassy, aphanitic, and pyroclastic textures are associated with extrusive processes.