Ijolite

Ijolite is an igneous rock consisting essentially of nepheline and augite.^[1] Ijolite is a rare rock type of considerable importance from a mineralogical and petrological standpoint. The word is derived from the first syllable of the Finnish words such as Iivaara, Iijoki · and Ii, all geographical names in Finland, and the Ancient Greek Xiflos, a stone. Ijolite occurs in various parts of the Kainuu region of eastern Finland and in the Kola Peninsula of northwest Russia on the shores of the White Sea.^[2] Ijolite was first defined and named by Finnish geologist Wilhelm Ramsay.^[3]

The pyroxene is morphic^[clarify], yellow or green, and is surrounded by formless areas of nepheline. The accessory minerals are apatite, cancrinite, calcite, titanite and schorlomite, a dark-brown titaniferous variety of melanite-garnet. This rock is the plutonic and holo-crystalline analogue of the nephelinites -volcanic equivalent and nepheline-dolerites; it bears the same relation to them as the nepheline syenites have to the phonolites.^[2]

A leucite-augite rock, resembling ijolite except in containing leucite in place of nepheline, is known to occur at Shonkin Creek, near Fort Benton, Montana, and was earlier called missourite,^[2] but is now regarded as a variety of leucitite.^[4]