Country rock (geology) in geology when the term "country rock" is used include: When describing a pluton or dike, the igneous rock can be described as intruding the surrounding "country rock", the rock into which the pluton has intruded. When country rock is intruded by dyke, it is called "discordant intrusion," while intrusion by a sill indicates a "sub-parallel" or "concordant intrusion". Most intrusions into country rock are via magma. Usually, country rock is intruded by an igneous body of rock which formed when magma forced upward through fractures, or melted through overlying rock. Magma then cooled into solid rock, different from the
Pillow lava on the planet, the Isua and Barberton greenstone belts, confirms the presence of large bodies of water on the Earth's surface early in the Archean Eon. Pillow lavas are used generally to confirm subaqueous volcanism in metamorphic belts. Pillow lavas are also found associated with some subglacial volcanoes at an early stage of an eruption. They are created when magma reaches the surface but, as there is a large difference in temperature between the lava and the water, the surface of the emergent tongue cools very quickly, forming a skin. The tongue continues to lengthen and inflate with more lava,