Orthopyroxene
noun ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 Any pyroxene that forms orthorhombic crystals.
"Biotite from lava flows is invariably rimmed or totally replaced by an exceedingly fine-grained, almost isotropic intergrowth of K-feldspar, orthopyroxene, cordierite and ilmenite, probably as a result of dehydration of the magma on eruption. Cordierite and orthopyroxene (5% each) occur as euhedral phenocrysts 1 to 2 mm in diameter, but cordierite can be up to 5 mm across and occur as anhedral ovoids."
Example
More examples"Biotite from lava flows is invariably rimmed or totally replaced by an exceedingly fine-grained, almost isotropic intergrowth of K-feldspar, orthopyroxene, cordierite and ilmenite, probably as a result of dehydration of the magma on eruption. Cordierite and orthopyroxene (5% each) occur as euhedral phenocrysts 1 to 2 mm in diameter, but cordierite can be up to 5 mm across and occur as anhedral ovoids."
Etymology
From ortho- + pyroxene.
More for "orthopyroxene"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.