Basalt And Granite Which One Is Older

Summary basalt vs granite.

Basalt and granite which one is older.

The granite cuts through the schist in first photo and cuts the schist s foliation in the second. It forms from lava flows which extrude onto the surface and cool. The earth is 4 billion years old and any kind of rock can form just about anywhere. Though some rocks look identical they have certain characteristics which distinguish them from others.

The granite is much older than the basalt. Basalt is an igneous volcanic rock that forms commonly in oceanic crust and parts of continental crust. That s in the cretaceous period the last period in which the. Summary of basalt vs.

Basalt is fine grained so the individual minerals are not visible but they include pyroxene plagioclase feldspar and olivine these minerals are visible in the coarse grained plutonic version of basalt called gabbro. Also since both those lithologies are igneo. The principle of cutting states when one feature cuts another the feature being cut is older the feature doing the cutting is younger. Granite vs basalt characteristics.

There is no reason for some existing rock to preclude the later existence of a different sort of rock. Granite vs basalt characteristics assist us to distinguish and recognize rocks. Characteristics of rocks include texture appearance color fracture streak hardness etc. This specimen erupted from kilauea volcano in 1960.

Its principle minerals include pyroxene feldspar and olivine. It is common both on earth and other planetary bodies. Basalt wikipedia wikimedia foundation 13 sept. Basalt is an extrusive or intrusive rock that makes up most of the world s oceanic crust.