Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun A rock fragment foreign to the igneous mass in which it occurs.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun In petrography, a term proposed by Sollas (1894) for a rock inclosed in an intrusive rock, and not derived from the igneous magma.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun geology any piece of
rock having a differentorigin to that of theigneous rock in which it is found
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun (geology) a piece of rock of different origin from the igneous rock in which it is embedded
Etymologies
Sorry, no etymologies found.
Support
Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word xenolith.
Examples
-
Usurped the subtlety, the vulnerability of the egg and ham wedding, the pepper xenolith stood firm, yelled to the other flavors and claimed victory, zero-sum taste diplomacy.
-
The odds against one of them getting picked up as a xenolith are probably astronomical.
-
"Unless one got carried to the surface as a xenolith!"
-
- This diamond discovery was from a multi-phased xenolith-bearing lamprophyre dyke system, approximately 6 metres wide in its surface exposure.
-
- 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).
-
- A fragment (or xenolith) of well mineralized intrusive within barren granodiorite was observed in drill hole MX07-03;
-
- A fragment (or xenolith) of well mineralized intrusive within barren granodiorite was observed in drill hole MX07-03;
-
- A fragment (or xenolith) of well mineralized intrusive within barren granodiorite was observed in drill hole MX07-03;
-
this strikes me as patently false! known direct samples of the mantle at or near the moho are at slow spreading ridges (where both serpentinite and unhydrous mantle rocks are found) and by xenolith (to my knowledge, no serpentinite xenolith has ever been described).
Comments
Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.