What is "basalt"

Usage examples of "basalt".

These relics included an enclosure of coral blocks marking the outlines of a rectangular building which, Emory and Finney considered, showed similarities to some Tongan structures, and basalt adzes which must have come from a high volcanic island, since basalt does not occur naturally on low atolls.

Tuff is much softer than basalt and andesite, and over the years this exposed layer has eroded away, leaving us with our wonderful hotel.

Jago, one of the Azores, a horizontal, calcareous stratum occurs, containing shells of recent marine species, covered by a great sheet of basalt eighty feet thick.

Basically, a process called metamorphism caused the basalts in Shenandoah to recrystallize with new minerals, such as chlorite, epidote, and albite, which help give the rocks their greenish hue.

And when I saw that the reef was but the black basalt crown of a shocking eikon whose monstrous forehead now shown in the dim moonlight and whose vile hooves must paw the hellish ooze miles below, I shrieked and shrieked lest the hidden face rise above the waters, and lest the hidden eyes look at me after the slinking away of that leering and treacherous yellow moon.

At a height of a hundred feet rose the vaulted roof, supported on basalt shafts.

The basalt pillars, fitted one into the other, measured from forty to fifty feet in height, and the water, calm in spite of the tumult outside, washed their base.

Like labradorite and anorthite, it is a common constituent of basic igneous rocks, such as gabbro and basalt.

No doubt they represent the terrestrial life of the idolater whose body rests here, under my feet, at the bottom of a well, in a coffin of black basalt.

Just as the Azores are believed to be the last high peaks of Atlantis, so hints came to me steadily that Ponape and Lele and their basalt bulwarked islets were the last points of the slowly sunken western land clinging still to the sunlight, and had been the last refuge and sacred places of the rulers of that race which had lost their immemorial home under the rising waters of the Pacific.

The basalt cat, the pride of the home, its excretory stroll along the quai concluded, now whined for readmittance outside the door.

The sidewalks were masonry eighteen inches thick, sawn from the same black basalt as the rest of the castle.

I live I shall remember my first step on land--the whiff of drying stockfish from the shore, the black basalt rocks, the clumps of broad-leaved arch-angelica, and the oyster-catchers piping along the shingle.

On the teocalli Santiago stood like a statue of black basalt, facing the east, dagger held high--a wild and terrible sight, naked as he was save for a wide silken girdle and that inhuman mask on his face.

Is it all this broken-up breccia or is there, maybe, a big old finger of basalt sticking up that we could scramble right on down?