Phenocrysts - Larger crystals in a groundmass of fine crystals.

Unusually large, often euhedral, crystals in an otherwise fine-grained igneous rock. The resultant texture is a porphyritic texture. Phenocrysts are the result of slower crystallisation of the magma than the fin-grained matrix. See Porphyritic texture.The... More

Crystals in a lava, pumice, or scoria which form by slow cooling of the magma in the magma chamber. When the magma rises to the surface it cools more rapidly and the remaining melt either chills to a glass (as in pumice or scoria) or crystallises to a fine mesh of microscopic crystal called the groundmass (as in many lavas). Phenocrysts in Montserrat rocks may reach a millimetre or more in size, and may sometimes occur in clusters.

Term used for relatively large conspicuous crystals set in a finer crystalline matrix in an igneous rock. These large crystals have typically grown at a much earlier stage and at a deeper level in the Earth's crust than the finer matrix in which they are set. Igneous rocks containing phenocrysts exhibit a porphyritic texture.

Large crystals set in a fine-grained ground mass.

A term used to denote a relatively large, conspicuous crystal in a porphyritic rock.