Mafic The mafic rocks also typically have a higher density than felsic rocks. The term roughly corresponds to the older "basic rock" class. Mafic lava, before cooling, has a low viscosity, in comparison with felsic lava, due to the lower silica content in mafic magma. Water and other volatiles can more easily and gradually escape from mafic lava. As a result, eruptions of volcanoes made of mafic lavas are less explosively violent than felsic-lava eruptions. Most mafic-lava volcanoes are shield volcanoes, like those in Hawaii. Mafic Mafic is an adjective describing a silicate mineral or igneous rock that is rich in
Lithology for the presence of calcite (or other forms of calcium carbonate) using dilute hydrochloric acid and looking for effervescence. The mineralogical composition of a rock is one of the major ways in which it is classified. In general, igneous rocks can be categorized by increasing silica content as ultramafic, mafic, intermediate, or felsic, though more mineral-specific classifications also exist. Likewise, metamorphic facies, which show the degree to which a rock has been exposed to heat and pressure and are therefore important in classifying metamorphic rocks, are determined by observing the mineral phases that are present in a sample. The colour