
tonalite
Sign in to savethumb|A piece of tonalite on red granite gneiss from Tjörn, Sweden thumb|QAPF diagram with tonalite field highlighted Tonalite is an igneous, plutonic (intrusive) rock, of felsic composition, with phaneritic (coarse-grained) texture. Feldspar is present as plagioclase (typically oligoclase or andesine) with alkali feldspar making up less than 10% of the total feldspar content. Quartz (SiO2) is present as more than 20% of the total quartz-alkali feldspar-plagioclase-feldspathoid (QAPF) content of the rock. Amphiboles and biotite are common in lesser quantities, while accessory minerals include
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thumb|A piece of tonalite on red granite gneiss from Tjörn, Sweden thumb|QAPF diagram with tonalite field highlighted Tonalite is an igneous, plutonic (intrusive) rock, of felsic composition, with phaneritic (coarse-grained) texture. Feldspar is present as plagioclase (typically oligoclase or andesine) with alkali feldspar making up less than 10% of the total feldspar content. Quartz (SiO2) is present as more than 20% of the total quartz-alkali feldspar-plagioclase-feldspathoid (QAPF) content of the rock. Amphiboles and biotite are common in lesser quantities, while accessory minerals include apatite, magnetite and zircon.
In older references tonalite is sometimes used as a synonym for quartz diorite. However the current IUGS classification defines tonalite as having greater than 20% quartz, while quartz diorite varies its quartz content from 5 to 20%.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “tonalite” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.