Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A fine-grained metamorphic rock composed of quartz, feldspar, mica, and other minerals, formed by the metamorphism of sedimentary rocks from heat associated with magma.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun In petrography, a dense, aphanitic rock composed of feldspar, quartz, and other minerals, usually a product of the contact-metamorphism of an intrusive rock upon shale or other sedimentary rock. Sometimes called hornstone.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun Any of a series of contact metamorphic rocks that have been baked and indurated by the heat of intrusive igneous masses and rendered massive, hard, splintery, and in some cases exceedingly tough and durable.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a fine-grained metamorphic rock formed by the action of heat on clay rocks

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[German : Horn, horn; see hornblende + Fels, rock, cliff (from Middle High German vels, from Old High German felis).]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

German, meaning "horn stone", after its frequent association with glacial "horn peaks" in the Alps.

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Examples

  • They went single file, stopping once to clear a rockfall, pitching splintered chunks of shale and hornfels into the groan - ing trench to their right.

    Wizard and Glass King, Stephen 1997

  • -- TB High Grade Zone - 500 metre of anomalous hornfels zone with drill results including:

    Latest News - Yahoo!7 News 2010

  • The preliminary, widely spaced five hole drill program encountered anomalous gold, arsenic and base-metals in intervals tens-of-metres thick with silicification, pyritic sulphides, within variable skarn and hornfels alteration.

    The Earth Times Online Newspaper 2010

  • -- TB High Grade Zone - 500 metre of anomalous hornfels zone with drill results including:

    Latest News - Yahoo!7 News 2010

  • (VTEM) surveys flown in 2008 showed that outcropping granitic plugs are marked by magnetic lows while hornfels altered zones underlie magnetic highs.

    The Earth Times Online Newspaper 2010

  • -- TB High Grade Zone - 500 metre of anomalous hornfels zone with drill results including:

    Latest News - Yahoo!7 News 2010

  • - Strong quartz stockwork with molybdenite in biotite hornfels has been observed adjacent to the Ethel zone (Drill Hole MX07-01).

    unknown title 2009

  • - Strong quartz stockwork with molybdenite in biotite hornfels has been observed adjacent to the Ethel zone (Drill Hole MX07-01).

    The Earth Times Online Newspaper 2009

  • - A fragment (or xenolith) of well mineralized intrusive within barren granodiorite was observed in drill hole MX07-03; - Disseminated molybdenite has recently been observed in intrusive rocks at the 805 mine level, currently below the Z zone described previously; and, - Strong quartz stockwork with molybdenite in biotite hornfels has been observed adjacent to the Ethel zone (Drill Hole MX07-01).

    FinanzNachrichten.de: Aktuelle Nachrichten 2009

  • The iron-rich skarn rocks, as well as other skarn types including epidote-silica skarns and sulphide-rich skarns, and hornfels rocks have been mapped as covering an area approximately 2,000 metres east-west by >

    ACN Newswire 2009

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