Program: B.

Tech, Civil Engineering, 4ₜₕ Sem, 2nd year

CE-405: Engineering Geology & Remote Sensing

Unit- III
Petrology
Topic: Classification of Igneous Rocks
Jan –June, 2020-21 / Lecture-05
Vishakha Yadav
Assistant Professor , Department of Civil Engineering
Reference No.- 01
 Content
• Learning outcomes
• Classification of Igneous rock
• Exercise
• Reference

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 Learning Outcomes
At the end of this lecture student will be able to know the
following things:
• Classification of igneous rock on different basis

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 CLASSIFICATION OF IGNEOUS ROCKS
• Classification of igneous rocks is not an easy task.
• It is so because igneous rocks represent a continuum in
nature (whether mineralogically or chemically), making
their classification rather artificial.
• Nevertheless, classifications are needed to improve
communication between scientists.

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• There are a number of ways the igneous rocks are
classified.
• Some of the important parameters considered for
classification of igneous rocks are as follows.

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• On the Basis of Mode of Occurrence
• On the Basis of Mineralo-Chemical Composition
• On the Basis of Mineralogical Composition
• On the Basis of Colour Index
• On the Basis of Texture
• Tabular Classification

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 On the Basis of Mode of Occurrence
• The igneous rocks may be classed as intrusive and
extrusive rocks.
• The intrusive rocks are those formed by the
crystallization of the magma within the Earth’s crust, and
are termed plutonic or hypabyssal, depending upon the
size and depth of the rock inside the Earth.

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• However, when magma is erupted as lava on the Earth’s
surface and gets solidified, the rock is termed as extrusive
rock; the examples are those of volcanic rocks.
• The igneous rocks are described as follows.

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 Plutonic Rocks
• These are the igneous rocks that are formed at
considerable depths, generally 7–10 km below the surface
of the Earth.
• A very slow rate of cooling at these depths results in
coarse-grained rocks.
• These rocks get exposed on the surface of the Earth as a
consequence of erosion of the overlying strata.
• Granite, syenite and gabbro are a few examples of
plutonic rocks.

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 Hypabyssal Rocks
• These igneous rocks are formed at intermediate depths,
generally up to 2 km below the surface of the Earth.
• The hypabyssal rocks exhibit mixed characteristics of
volcanic and plutonic rocks.
• Porphyries of various compositions are examples of
hypabyssal rocks.
• These rocks are characterized by medium grains.

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 Volcanic Rocks
• The igneous rocks that are formed on the surface of the
Earth by cooling and crystallization of lava erupted from
volcanoes are known as volcanic rocks.
• Since the lava cools down at a very fast rate (compared to
magma), the grain size of the crystals formed is very fi ne,
often microscopic.

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• Further, cooling of lava may take place on the surface or
under the waters of seas and oceans; the latter process
being more common.
• The examples are Deccan Traps of India spread over more
than four lakh square kilometres in Peninsular India; and
the Pir-Panjal Traps in Kashmir Himalayas are the
example.

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On the Basis of Mineralo-Chemical Composition
• To classify igneous rocks on the basis of chemical
composition, the availability of bulk rock chemical
analyses is required.
• The classification is needed for many volcanic rocks that
are either too fine-grained to allow for proper
identification of their mineralogy, or contain considerable
amounts of glass..

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• The igneous rocks may be classifi ed on the basis of
relative abundance of the rock-forming minerals.
• In terms of the percentage of silica, igneous rocks are
classed as acidic, intermediate, basic and ultra-basic rocks.

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 Acidic Rocks
• Acidic Rocks also known as oversaturated rocks (contain
excess of silica to crystallize as quartz), the rocks are rich
in silica (> 66%) and have very little ferromagnesian
minerals.
• The common constituents are quartz, alkali feldspar and
mica.

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• Acidic rocks are also called felsic rocks.
• These are generally light to medium in colour and have
low specifi c gravity (about 2.7).
• The example rocks are granites and syenites.

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 Intermediate Rocks
• These rocks contain silica between 55 to 66%.
• The examples of these rocks are pegmatite and syenite.
• These rocks are characterized by their light colour and
medium- to coarse-grained texture.

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 Basic Rocks
• These rocks contain silica content between 45 to 55%.
• These rocks essentially contain dark ferromagnesian
minerals and feldspar in significant proportion also.
• Basic rocks are also called mafic rocks.
• These are generally dark in colour and have high specific
gravity (about 3.2).
• The examples of these rocks are basalt and gabbro.

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 Ultra-basic Rocks
• In ultra-basic rocks, also known as undersaturated rocks
(contain insufficient silica so that unsaturated minerals
like olivine, nepheline, etc., may be present), silica is
present in negligible quantity (< 45%) and quartz is rare.
• The rocks are rich in ferromagnesian minerals containing
high iron and magnesium like olivine.
• The unsaturated minerals like leucite, nepheline, sodalite,
olivine, etc., make these rocks.
• The example rocks are peridotite and dunite

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 On the Basis of Mineralogical Composition
• Mineralogical classification is regarded as an easy and
most accurate method.
• The mineralogical composition of most of the igneous
rocks can be determined quite accurately, megascopically
or by making thin rock sections and studying them under
the microscope.

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• Since the mineralogical composition of an igneous rock is
an expression of the chemical composition of the parent
magma and cooling history of the rock, it therefore forms
a sound basis for classifying the igneous rocks.
• On the basis of mineralogical composition, the rocks may
be classified as felsic, intermediate, mafic and ultramafic

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 On the Basis of Colour Index
• It is a convention to broadly assess the sum of the
coloured minerals in a rock and express it in percentage
terms of total mineralogical composition, which gives the
colour index of the mineral.
• This is a very simple classification used by field
geologists, and depends on estimating the volume
percentage of the dark coloured (mafic) minerals in the
rock.
• The rock divisions into four groups on the basis of colour
index.
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 On the Basis of Texture
• This is a megascopic or microscopic classifi cation.
• Textures are used as a secondary criterion for the classifi
cation of igneous rocks.
• Based on the texture, igneous rocks may be classifi ed as
follows.

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 Phanerites
• Large crystals that are clearly visible to the eye with or
without a 10-power (10 X) hand lens.
• The entire rock is made up of large crystals which are
generally ½ mm to 5 mm in size (coarse-grained; average
grain size greater than 5 mm); no fi ne matrix material is
present.
• This texture forms by the slow cooling of magma deep
underground in the plutonic environment.

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 Aphanites
• These are the crystals that cannot be seen by the eye with
or without a 10-power hand lens.

• The entire rock is made up of small crystals, which are

generally less than ½ mm in size.
• This texture results from the rapid cooling in volcanic or
hypabyssal (shallow subsurface) environments.

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 Glasses
• Glass results from cooling that is so fast that minerals do
not have a chance to crystallize.
• This may happen when magma or lava comes into quick
contact with much cooler materials near the Earth’s
surface.
• Glasses may be defi ned as rocks of zero grain size. These
are sometimes referred as supercooled liquids. Pure
volcanic glass is known as obsidian. The non-crystalline
(glassy) structure of the rock, in which no minerals are
present, is termed glassy texture.
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• These are sometimes referred as supercooled liquids.
• Pure volcanic glass is known as obsidian.
• The non-crystalline (glassy) structure of the rock, in
which no minerals are present, is termed glassy texture.

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 Tabular Classification
• To facilitate field geologists and engineers, who are rather
concerned more with a practical classification system than
a theoretical one, igneous rocks may be classified on the
basis of chemical composition, mineralogical composition
and depth of occurrence.

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• The essential features of the tabular classification are as
follows:
• 1. Each class of the above rocks is subdivided into rock
subclasses according to the relative abundance of rock-
forming mineral assemblages of: quartz and feldspars;
feldspars; feldspars and felspathoids and; ferro-magnesian
minerals.

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• 2. Silica content is also an important governing factor for
classifi cation of igneous rocks.
• 3. The igneous rocks are fi rst classed based on their mode
of occurrence as indicated by their textural and structural
features: plutonic, hypabyssal and volcanic.

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 Exercise
• The size of particle in coarse-grained texture is
• more than 2mm.
• more than 10mm
• less than 8mm
• less than 2mm

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 Exercise
• A rock made up of quartz will have a very similar
composition to
• igneous rocks
• metamorphic rocks
• sedimentary rocks
• Quartz.

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Reference
• Prabin Singh -"Engineering and General Geology"
• P. K. Mukherjee -"A test Book of Geology"
• S. K. Garg --"A text Book of Physical and Engineering Geology
• S.K. Duggal – Engineering Geology
• Google

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