Rock microstructure intrusions are a result of uninterrupted slow cooling. When a rock cools too quickly the liquid freezes into a solid glass, or crystalline groundmass. Often vapor loss from a magma chamber will cause a porphyritic texture. "Embayments" or 'corroded' margins to phenocrysts infer that they were being resorbed by the magma and may imply addition of fresh, hotter magma. Ostwald ripening is also used to explain some porphyritic igneous textures, especially orthoclase megacrystic granites. A crystal growing in a magma adopts a habit (see crystallography) which best reflects its environment and cooling rate. The usual phenocryst habit is the ones
Lava New lava flows will cover the surrounding land, isolating the kīpuka so that it appears as a (usually) forested island in a barren lava flow. Lava domes are formed by the extrusion of viscous felsic magma. They can form prominent rounded protuberances, such as at Valles Caldera. As a volcano extrudes silicic lava, it can form an "inflation dome", gradually building up a large, pillow-like structure which cracks, fissures, and may release cooled chunks of rock and rubble. The top and side margins of an inflating lava dome tend to be covered in fragments of rock, breccia and ash. Examples