Ruapehu Xenolith

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3D Model

Xenolith from Ruapehu, GNS P92559 (RP6)

Volcanoes occasionally cough up little pieces of earth’s deep crust in rising magma that has erupted as lava flows. These pieces of crust are called xenoliths, from the Greek ‘foreign rock’ or ‘strange stone’ because the rocks are very different from the surrounding lava. This xenolith is a banded, very fine grained granofel of meta-igneous composition. Porphyritic andesite lava clings to some of the outside of the sample and has penetrated the xenolith in thin veins.

• Sample found by Hamish Campbell
• Image scanned by Nick Mortimer using Trnio and an iPhone SE
• Model edited by Andrew Boyes in Agisoft Metashape
• The square marker on the rock is 1x1 cm in size.