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5.2: Igneous Rock

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    22629
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    Extrusive igneous rock. Basalt lava flow on Old Chain of Craters Road, Hawaii. With permission by: Garry Hayes and Susan Hayes from http://geotripperimages.com/Volcanism/lava_flows.html
    Figure \(\PageIndex{1}\): Extrusive igneous rock. Basalt lava flow on Old Chain of Craters Road, Hawaii. (With permission by: Garry Hayes and Susan Hayes)

    The temperature of magma can range between about 800\(^{\circ}\) and 1600 \(^{\circ}\)C depending on where within the mantle the magma forms. Magma can either cool slowly within the crust (over centuries to millions of years)—forming intrusive igneous rock (also called plutonic rock), or erupt onto the surface and cool quickly (within seconds to years)—forming extrusive igneous rock (also called volcanic rock). Intrusive igneous rock typically crystallizes at depths of hundreds of meters to tens of kilometers below the surface.


    This page titled 5.2: Igneous Rock is shared under a CC BY-NC 4.0 license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by Callan Bentley, Karen Layou, Russ Kohrs, Shelley Jaye, Matt Affolter, and Brian Ricketts (VIVA, the Virginia Library Consortium) via source content that was edited to the style and standards of the LibreTexts platform; a detailed edit history is available upon request.