Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun Any of a group of rocks, especially mafic and ultramafic igneous rocks, thought to have formed during crustal thinning at a mid-ocean ridge and to have been subsequently thrust onto continental crust.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun A name given by Brongniart to one of the rocks designated in Italy as gabbro, which consists of serpentine with included segregations of diallage.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun geology an
assemblage ofmafic andultramafic rock fragments of theocean lithosphere that has beentectonically moved onto acontinental margin orisland
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
Support
Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word ophiolite.
Examples
-
The bedrock on the hill is rocky ophiolite, which is very susceptible to erosion by rain and frost, so a large-scale conservation is very much needed.
-
Just below the plinth of the stage, one immediately discovered a very compact layer of ophiolite, which is probably the natural bedrock.
-
The Macquarie Island ophiolite complex: mid-tertiary oceanic lithosphere from a major ocean basin.
-
Four types of igneous rock are evident: ultrabasic, basic, intermediate acid and alkali rock as well as fairly developed ophiolite, in association with deep-water silicalite.
-
Except in gullies (wadis), the areas of ophiolite support little vegetation.
-
Igneous and metamorphic petrology of lavas and dykes of the Macquarie Island ophiolite complex.
-
In most of the area, we quickly reached the natural bedrock of ophiolite.
-
This layer consisted of a refill of weathered ophiolite, small limestone rubble and - rather remarkably - fragments from exclusively roof tiles.
-
Pillow textures preserved in an ophiolite sequence near the Saglassos excavation site
Interactive Dig Sagalassos - Isotope Archaeology Survey Report 1 2003
-
The early Imperial (?) kiln dug into the ophiolite
Comments
Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.