felsic
Word Rarity
Very rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 1.90 in modern English
11
Scrabble Score
6
Letters
2
Syllables
6
Unique Chars
Meaning
adj
Enriched in minerals predominantly composed of the lighter elements such as silicon, oxygen, aluminium, sodium, and potassium.
noun
A rock with such properties.
Example Sentences
- "Much of the southern half of the southeastern body is a mafic syenite, slightly more felsic than the shonkinite."
- "Within comagmatic suites, successively younger granitoids are commonly, but not invariably, more felsic, representing progressively lower temperature mineral assemblages."
- "The Claret Creek Supersuite granites are a little more felsic (65-77% SiO₂), and are chemically distinctive, having higher Al₂O₃, CaO, Na₂O and Sr, and lower K₂O, Rb, Th and U than the granites of the Almaden Supersuite."
- "The central part of this nepheline syenite is very white felsics with black mafics in it. The entire area contains many nepheline-bearing dike rocks, but almost all are gray or pink or even red due to the color in the felsics."
- "There are also calcalkaline felsics that have highly enriched LREE^([light rare-earth element]) patterns with lower overall abundances."
Etymology
Word Breakdown
- Suffix: ic