GRANULAR
Consisting of
crystal grains that are large enough to be easily
seen by the naked eye, the grains varying in size
from 0.5 mm (1/32 in) in adesites to over 5 mm
(1/4 in) in granites.
APHANITIC
Made up of tiny
crystals, which can only be identified using a
microscope or powerful hand lends, they give the
rock a flow texture (eg. basalt) when aligned.
GLASSY
Composed of
volcanic glass, sometimes the glass may be
streaky, due to aphanitic bands, and may often
contain micro crystals of feldspar (eg.
obsidian).
PYROCLASTIC
These are volcanic
rocks in which the magma has been shattered by an
explosive eruption and so may consist of tiny
silvers of volcanic glass, fragments of pumice,
crystals or fractured rock; they may be
unconsolidated or cemented together when fresh
and altered to clays by weathering when not.
PORPHYRITIC
Larger crystals,
phenocrysts, are embedded in a finer ground mass;
some of the large crystals best being described
as megacrysts that have grown in mearly solid
rock by means of the replacement of other
minerlas -- a common feature in many granite.
FOLIATED
Minerals are
arranged in paralle bands, sometimes contorted as
a result of the way the rock flowed while it was
still hot and plastic (eg. flow-banded rhyolite).