Earth and Life Science

Grade 11/12 • Unit 4: Minerals and Rocks

Lesson 4.2
Igneous Rocks

Igneous rocks

Introduction
The rocks surrounding a campfire do not usually melt. Rocks need a very high temperature
for it to melt. Igneous rocks need high rock-melting heat similar to the temperature of the
primitive earth. The term igneous comes from the Latin word ignis which means fire. It is
formed in temperatures not lower than 700 °C. How can a geologist differentiate one
type of igneous rock from the other?

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Grade 11/12 • Unit 4: Minerals and Rocks

look for other students who have the same tags as theirs.
4. After five seconds, the assigned person will yell “stop!”. The students should now stop
moving and searching.
5. Count how many members were formed in each set of colored tags.
6. Repeat steps 3 to 5 with different time intervals (10, 30, and 60 seconds).

Guide Questions
1. How many members were formed after the different time intervals?
2. What is the relationship of the time interval to the number of members formed after
the time allotted to “crystallize”?
3. Based on this activity, what can you infer about the formation of crystals in rocks?

Learn about It

Minerals such as quartz, feldspar, pyroxene, olivine, amphibole, and mica are the
components of almost all types of igneous rocks. Studying this rock type is like studying
magma since igneous rocks come from cooled magma. Aside from temperature of the
magma, pressure also contributes to the formation of igneous rocks.

Igneous rocks are formed from solidification of magma or lava which flows out from depth.
There are two types of igneous rocks based on the temperature-pressure condition during
the solidification of magma: extrusive and intrusive rocks. In addition, the time duration is
also a factor in the formation of crystals of igneous rocks. Let us deal with this formation
and types of igneous rocks in detail.

Formation of Igneous Rocks

Igneous rocks are characterized by intergrowth of crystals and/or volcanic glass. Crystal
size is an indicator whether a rock is formed deep within Earth or just near the surface. It is
directly proportional to the cooling rate of magma. This means that when the crystals are
big, it denotes that the rock is formed deep underground since the magma has a longer trip

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to the surface giving it longer time to cool down at a very slow rate. On the other hand,
magma cools quickly (fast cooling) near the surface that causes formation of smaller crystals
since it is given little time to form.

Fig. 1. A model that shows how cooling rate affects crystal size

An example of a rock with large crystals is a diorite while those with smaller crystals is an
obsidian.

Fig. 2. Diorite (left) and obsidian (right) are examples of igneous rocks.

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Grade 11/12 • Unit 4: Minerals and Rocks

Did You Know?

Earth’s crust is composed of 95% igneous rocks.

Bowen’s Reaction Series

Crystals form when magma is cooled. A general model is created to show the progression of
silicate crystallization at specific temperature. It is called Bowen’s reaction series which is
developed by petrologist Norman L. Bowen.

In the early 1900’s, Bowen came up with this idea by analyzing what minerals were formed if
igneous rocks were subjected to varying temperatures. He started with melting igneous
rocks at about 1200 °C. Then, let the magma cool down giving time for crystals to crystallize.
After doing it at varying temperatures, he found out that there are two different branches.
The first one is the discontinuous branch shown at the left side of Fig. 3. The first mineral,
olivine, will form if the chemistry of magma (at about 1200 °C) has everything that these
minerals need. If the magma is allowed to cool down further, olivine will melt and create
pyroxene which is the next mineral in the sequence. Further cooling will form amphibole,
and then biotite mica.

Tips
For you to easily remember the order of the four minerals in the
discontinuous branch, you may use a mnemonic for example “Old People
Are Bright”. The first letter of each word represents a mineral in the
discontinuous branch of the reaction series.

On the other hand, the continuous branch does not include the transformation of different
minerals. It only shows the development of calcium-rich plagioclase feldspar to its
sodium-rich counterpart.

As it proceeds down the series, the two branches eventually merge and the magma starts
to crystallize into potassium feldspar, muscovite mica, and quartz.

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Fig. 3. The Bowen’s reaction series.

Essential Question
What are the types of igneous rocks?

Types of Igneous Rocks

Igneous rocks can be classified based on the temperature-pressure condition during the
solidification of magma: extrusive and intrusive.

Extrusive Igneous Rocks

An extrusive igneous rock forms when magma or volcanic fragments erupt and solidify on
Earth’s surface which results in very fine-grained rock with very small crystals that could not
be seen through naked eye. It is also known as a volcanic rock. The texture of most
extrusive rocks can be of three different forms: smooth, full of holes, or can be with large
crystals embedded in a fine ground mass.

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Examples of extrusive igneous rocks are obsidian, andesite, and pumice. Obsidian, a rock
with a glassy texture, is so smooth because it cools so quickly that crystals were not given
time to form. Others such as pumice have many holes from escaped gas making this rock so
light that it can even float. Some rocks have a porphyritic texture where one mineral is
larger than the rest. The larger one is called phenocryst while the remainder is termed as
the groundmass. An example of this type are hornblende and andesite. This type of rocks
were formed when magma started to crystallize when it was still underneath Earth’s surface
(forming phenocryst) while others (groundmass) cooled rapidly after the eruption. A hot
cocoa with marshmallow can be a good analogy to these porphyritic rocks.

obsidian andesite pumice

Fig. 4. Examples of extrusive igneous rocks

Intrusive Igneous Rocks

An intrusive igneous rock forms when magma crystallizes within the crust and is
composed of medium to coarse grains. It is also known as a plutonic rock. Generally, two
types of intrusive bodies exist, namely: concordant and discordant types. When the
pre-existing rock bed is cut across by an intrusive body, it is termed as concordant while if it
runs parallel to the bedrock, igneous rock bodies are called discordant.

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Fig. 5. Intrusive igneous bodies

As shown in Fig. 5, sills are concordant while dikes and laccolith are discordant. Batholiths
are large intrusive bodies formed deep within Earth.

Other Ways of Classifying Igneous Rocks

Igneous rocks can also be classified based on their texture and mineral composition.

Types of Igneous Rocks Based on Texture

Textures of igneous rocks include aphanitic, phaneritic, pegmatitic, vesicular, porphyritic,
amygdaloidal, and pyroclastic.

● Aphanitic rock has crystals that are too fine-grained to be seen by the naked eye or
even with the help of a hand lens.
● Phaneritic rock has grains that are coarse enough to be visible to the eye.
● Pegmatitic rock has crystals that are greater than 3 cm due to very slow cooling.
● Vesicular rock contains tiny holes called vesicles due to gas bubbles in the lava or
magma.
● Porphyritic are rocks where larger crystals are embedded in smaller crystals.

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● Amygdaloidal is when vesicles are filled by low-temperature minerals after the

solidification of magma.
● Pyroclastic is formed from the consolidation of individual rock fragments that are
ejected during a volcanic eruption.

Types of Igneous Rocks Based on Mineral Composition

Classification of igneous rocks based on mineral composition are felsic, intermediate, mafic,
or ultramafic.
● Felsic igneous rock is usually light colored and contains large amounts of quartz,
potassium feldspar, and plagioclase. It is also called granitic igneous rock.
● Intermediate igneous rock is medium gray or medium green and consists of major
minerals like amphibole, plagioclase, and feldspar.
● Mafic igneous rock is dark gray to black-colored and composed largely of plagioclase
and amphibole with small amounts of olivine. It is also called basaltic igneous rock.
● Ultramafic igneous rock has a very dark green to black shade and consists largely of
olivine and pyroxene.

Remember
Igneous rocks are classified in various ways:
● based on the temperature-pressure condition during the
solidification of magma (extrusive and intrusive).
● based on their texture (aphanitic, phaneritic, pegmatitic,
vesicular, porphyric, amygdaloidal, pyroclastic).
● based on mineral composition (felsic or granitic, intermediate,
mafic or basaltic and ultramafic).

Naming Igneous Rocks

Igneous rocks can be named using the binary system which is mainly based on its texture
and composition of the rock. This classification is organized using the table below.

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Table 4.2.1. Classifying igneous rocks based on texture and composition.

Composition (silica content)

Texture
Felsic Intermediate Mafic

extrusive (volcanic) rhyolite andesite basalt

intrusive (plutonic) granite diorite gabbro

Rocks can be classified into extrusive (volcanic) and intrusive (plutonic). Extrusive rocks cool
so rapidly that crystals are unable to form. This is the reason for their fine-grained texture.
Intrusive rocks, on the other hand, cool so slow. This gives time for the crystals to form
making their texture coarse-grained.

In terms of composition, felsic is silica-rich while mafic is silica-poor. Intermediate is just in

between. A rock with a high silica component is dominated by light-colored minerals and
few dark minerals. In contrast, low silica component rocks have more dark-colored minerals
than the light ones. Intermediate rocks have equal amounts of light and dark colored
minerals.

Just by observing these two properties, a person can now name an unknown igneous rock.
For example, the unknown rock has few crystals (volcanic) and has more dark-colored
minerals than the light ones (mafic). Referring to the table above, the unknown rock is
probably basalt.

Table 4.2.2. Common igneous rocks from pyroclastic eruptions

Composition Rock name

felsic rhyolitic tuff

intermediate andesitic tuff

mafic basaltic tuff

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Key Points

● Igneous rocks come from the Latin word ignis which means fire. It is formed from
solidification of magma or lava which flows out from depth.
● Igneous rocks can be classified based on the temperature-pressure condition during
the solidification of magma, based on their texture, and based on mineral
composition.
● Bowen’s reaction series shows the progression of silicate minerals crystallization at
specific temperature conditions.
● Igneous rocks can be named based on its texture and composition.

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