Pyroxenite

Pyroxenite, a rock consisting essentially of minerals of the pyroxene group, such as augite and diallage, hypersthene, bronzite or enstatite. Names have been given to members of this group according to their component minerals, e.g. pyroxenite (augite), diallagite (diallage), hypersthenite (hypersthene), bronzitites (bronzite), websterite (diallage and hypersthene). Closely allied to this group are the hornblendites, consisting of hornblende. The term perknite (Gr. περκνός, dark) has also been used to designate the whole series.  
  
They are essentially of igneous origin, though some pyroxenites are included in the metamorphic complex of the Lewisian of Scotland; those pyroxene rocks which result from the contact alteration of impure limestones are described as pyroxene hornfelses (calc-silicate hornfelses). The pyroxenites are closely allied to the gabbros and norites, from which differ by the absence of felspar, and to the peridotites, which are distinguished from them by containing olivine. This connexion is indicated also by their mode of occurrence, for they usually accompany masses of gabbro and peridotite and seldom are found by themselves. They are strictly plutonic and often very coarse-grained, containing individual crystals which may be several inches in length. The principal accessory minerals, in addition to olivine and felspar, are chromite and spinels, garnet, iron oxides, rutile, scapolite. They frequently occur in the form of dikes or segragations in gabbro and peridotite: e.g. in Scotland, Cortlandt on the Hudson river, North Carolina (websterite), Baltimore, New Zealand, and in Saxony. The component minerals often have a close resemblance to those of the surrounding rock. By decompositin the rocks consisting of pyroxene pass into serpentines, which sometimes preserve the original structures of the primary minerals, such as the lamination of hypersthene and the rectangular cleavage of augite. Under pressure-metamorphism hornblende is developed and various types of amphibolite and hornblende-schist are produced. Occasionally rocks rich in pyroxene are found as basic facies of nepheline syenite; a good example is provided by the melanite pyroxenites associated with borolanite (q.v.) at Ledbeg in Sutherlandshire. (J.S.F.)