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January 9, 2013
LASI V: Xeno-Pumice– Mysterious Floating Rocks of the Canary Islands
Note: Dr. Steffi Burchardt, a senior lecturer in Structural Geology at Uppsala University in Sweden, presented a talk, “Xeno-pumice erupted offshore El Hierro, Canary Islands: A tale of stoped blocks in magma chambers?” at the LASI V workshop in Port Elizabeth, South Africa in October 2012. The article below is based on this talk and also an interview with Dr. Burchardt. Over a few weeks, I am highlighting some of …
January 25, 2012
Accretionary Wedge #42: Countertop Geology
Ian Saginor of the blog Volcanoclast is hosting this month’s accretionary wedge, and this month’s theme is countertop geology! Here’s the call for posts: Have you seen a great countertop out there? Sure, everyone says it’s “granite”, but you know better. Take a picture, post it on your own blog or send it to me and I’ll post it for you. Do you think you know what it is or …
January 23, 2012
Monday Geology Picture: A Dark-Colored Xenolith in the Cape Granite
A little dark-colored xenolith (isn’t it adorable?) in Cape Granite, Clifton Beach, Cape Town, South Africa, October 2011. I’m back home in Cape Town, so I thought I’d post a local picture for this week’s Monday Geology Picture. The above picture shows a small, dark-colored xenolith in the Cape Granite, a 550 million year old granite that has megacrysts (very big crystals) of feldspar. This xenolith is most likely a …
May 18, 2011
Geology Word of the Week: X is for Xenolith
Mafic xenolith, Ontario, Canada, 2002. Photo Credit: Ron Schott. Note: Sorry for the re-post. This post was lost and then mangled somewhat in the blogger mishap last week. I managed to correct the post, but I had to re-post it under a new day and time. def. Xenolith:A foreign rock inclusion, usually in an igeneous rock. Xenolith literally means “foreign rock” coming from “xenos” (foreign) and “lithos” (stone) in Ancient …