dacite

da·cite (dāʹsīt') n.

A light gray volcanic rock containing a mixture of plagioclase and other crystalline minerals in glassy silica, similar in appearance to rhyolite.

  [After Dacia.]

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▪ mineral

      volcanic rock that may be considered a quartz-bearing variety of andesite. Dacite is primarily associated with andesite and trachyte and forms lava flows, dikes, and sometimes massive intrusions in the centres of old volcanoes. Like andesite, dacite consists mostly of plagioclase feldspar with biotite, hornblende, augite, or enstatite and generally has a porphyritic structure (scattered larger crystals in a fine-grained groundmass); additionally, however, it contains quartz as rounded, corroded crystals or grains, or as a constituent of the groundmass. The feldspar content of dacite ranges from oligoclase to andesine and labradorite; sanidine occurs also in some dacites and when abundant gives rise to rocks transitional to the rhyolites. Many of the hornblende- and biotite-dacites are gray or pale-brown and yellow rocks with white crystals of feldspar and black crystals of biotite and hornblende; others, especially augite- and enstatite-dacites, are darker. Rocks of this group occur in Romania, Spain, Scotland, New Zealand, the Andes, Nevada and other parts of western North America, Greece, and elsewhere.

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