This article is about the small crystals that can form in solidifying lavas. For tantalum mineral, see Microlite. For lightweight, slow-flying airplanes, see Microlight.
Microlites are minute crystals in an amorphous matrix. In igneous petrology, the term microlitic is used to describe vitric (glassy, non-crystalline, amorphous) matrix containing microscopic crystals.[1] Microlitic rocks are a type of hypocrystalline rocks.[2] Unlike ordinary phenocrysts, which can be seen with little or no magnification, microlites are generally formed in rapidly cooled (quenched) basaltic lava, where cooling rates are too high to permit formation of larger crystals.
Microlites are sometimes referred to as “small quench crystals”.[3] They form more easily in basaltic lava eruptions, which have relatively low viscosity. Low viscosity permits rapid nucleation and ion migration, necessary for crystal formation. The high silica content of rhyolitic lavas gives them much higher viscosities.[3] Such lavas tend to form glass (obsidian) when they cool rapidly from a fully melted liquid state; though many obsidians also contain microlites.[2] Low viscosity mafic magmas must be quenched very rapidly from a high temperature to form glass that is free of any crystalline content.[3]
Microlites have been found in volcanic ash collected from Hawaiian lava fountains, where rapid cooling favors their formation. Sideromelane is a light brown basaltic glass, also formed in these eruptions, with and without microlites.
^Dictionary of Geological Terms, 1962, American Geological Institute
^ abPetrology The Study of Igneous...Rocks, Loren A. Raymond, 1995, McGraw-Hill, p. 27
^ abcSchmincke, Hans-Ulrich, Volcanism, 2004, Springer-Verlag, Chapter 12, Fire and Water, Rapid Cooling.
Microlites are minute crystals in an amorphous matrix. In igneous petrology, the term microlitic is used to describe vitric (glassy, non-crystalline, amorphous)...
Microlite was once[when?] known as a pale-yellow, reddish-brown, or black isometric mineral composed of sodium calcium tantalum oxide with a small amount...
indented surfaces. Internally the pebbles sometimes contain fine bands or microlites and though in reflected light they appear black and opaque, they may be...
abundance of lechatelierite a general lack of microscopic crystals known as microlites not having a chemical relationship to the local bedrock or local sediments...
other battery companies including VARTA, Ningbo Baowang and Microlite S.A. The Microlite acquisition included the rights to the Rayovac name in Brazil...
aircraft of unusual design, that was produced by Waspair and later Midwest Microlites. The designer is disputed and Chip Erwin, Larry Whiting and Robin Haynes...
series consisting of tantalite-(Fe), tantalite-(Mn) and tantalite-(Mg)), microlite (now a group name), wodginite, euxenite (actually euxenite-(Y)), and polycrase...
augite and olivine, but all these minerals very frequently occur mainly as microlites or as skeletal growths with sharply-pointed corners or ramifying processes...
art can be typical for hunters-gatherers and associated with blades and microlites industry. Similar representations are present in the stone carvings of...
Queiroz, A. A. A. E.; Andrade, M. B. (2022). "Prospection of pyrochlore and microlite mineral groups through Raman spectroscopy coupled with artificial neural...
glass) pyroclasts which contain microlites (small quench crystals, not to be confused with the rare mineral microlite) and phenocrysts. Slightly more...
accompanying finer-grained albite, lithium-bearing muscovite, lepidolite, microlite, and tantalite. Much of the spodumene and microcline have been extensively...
phenocrysts with minor clinopyroxene are set in a groundmass of feldspar microlites with interstitial chlorite and iron oxide. The latter is commonly vesicular...
tantalum in 1942 for wartime production, and reports going back to 1931 of microlite at the Harding Mine, led Arthur Montgomery to investigate the old workings...
Ixiolite is typically associated with feldspar, tapiolite, cassiterite, microlite, and rutile. Trace elements include zirconium, hafnium, titanium and tungsten...
Ekeberg[when?] at Ytterby, Sweden, and Kimoto, Finland. The minerals microlite and pyrochlore contain approximately 70% and 10% Ta, respectively. Tantalum...