Gabbro is dense, greenish or dark-colored and contains pyroxene, plagioclase, and minor amounts of amphibole and olivine. The pyroxene content is mostly clinopyroxene, generally augite, but small amounts of orthopyroxene may also be present.

Granite is a coarse-grained igneous rock with average grain size ranging from 1 to 25 millimeters. Gabbro is generally coarse grained, with crystals in the size range of 1 mm or greater.

Densities of Igneous Rocks

3500 kg/m3

Gabbro is a dense, mafic intrusive rock. It generally occurs as batholiths and laccoliths and is often found along mid-ocean ridges or in ancient mountains composed of compressed and uplifted oceanic crust.

how can you tell that gabbro crystallized deeper underground than basalt did? unlike some other rocks, igneous rocks such as granite and gabbro are never composed or rounded particles. other rocks (even other metamorphic rocks.)

Gabbro is usually very dark in color. It is the intrusive equivalent of basalt. An igneous rock with very large (usually > one inch), well-formed crystals. A granitic pegmatite has the mineralogy of a granite and abnormally large grains, whereas a gabbroic pegmatite has the mineralogy of a gabbro and very large grains.

Gabbro has a higher melting temperature than granite.

As mentioned above, potassium feldspar mineral is what has the salmon pink color. Basalt weathers faster than granite because it is not as hard and it’s easier for outside substances to impact and manipulate its structure. marble > gabbro > granite.

For more than 50 years, geologists have believed that granite forms at temperatures between 1,200 and 1,300 degrees Fahrenheit (650 and 700 degrees Celsius).

In our lab we can heat granite to above 1000°C or 2000°F until almost all the crystals melt and dissolve together becoming a liquid.