Monday, January 31, 2011

Mylo-whatification?

Okay rock buddies here is a cool word...mylonitization. I love words that Microsoft products freak out over, throwing a  red squiggly line under it like you are an idiot. The spell check knows "squiggly" but it doesn't know mylonitization. Well I can say before working on an academic paper for our upcoming Death Valley trip in a few weeks, I did not know this word. It was used to describe the deformation of rocks that were uplifted along a fault plane.

Mylonitization is one word that is not easily explained because it involves recrystallization and mechanical deformation of rock. Faults are perfect places for these events to occur.

Tonight's question is what do you call a rock that has gone through one or more processes involved in mylonitization?


Give up? 










Mylonite (duh).



 

Photo by Jeremy McCreary from his website at http://www.cliffshade.com/colorado/geo_overview.htm

No comments:

Post a Comment