Diabase definition

dīə-bās
(geology) A fine-grained igneous rock composed mostly of pyroxene and feldspar.
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A dark-gray to black, fine-textured igneous rock composed mainly of feldspar and pyroxene and used for monuments and as crushed stone.
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A finely crystalline, intrusive basaltic rock made up mainly of labradorite and pyroxene.
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(brit.) Altered dolerite.
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A dark-gray to black, medium-grained igneous rock consisting mainly of labradorite and pyroxene. Diabase is compositionally similar to andesite, but has coarser grains. It is commonly found in sills and dikes.
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Origin of diabase

  • French partly from Greek diabasis a crossing over (from diabainein to pass through or over diabetes) and partly from diabase (dia- two) (alteration of di-) (from Greek di- di–1) (base basis) (from Old French base1)

    From American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition

Diabase Sentence Examples

  • Here prevailing granite and diabase give rise to a complicated mountain system through which the rivers cleave their way in a curved and irregular course.

  • Slates, schists, quartzites and limestones form the greater part of the hills, but the Brocken and Victorshohe are masses of intrusive granite, and diabases and diabase tuffs are interstratified with the sedimentary deposits.

  • There occur also quartz-porphyry (Sierra Morena, Pyrenees, &c), diorite, porphyrite, diabase (well developed in the north of Andalusia, where it plays a great part in the structure of the Sierra Morena), ophite (Pyrenees, Cadiz), serpentine (forming an enormous mass in the Serrania de Ronda), trachyte, liparite, andesite, basalt.

  • Along Hudson Bay shore there is a strip of similar rocks, and a long row of small islands of the same age, with great sheets of trap or diabase forming the tops of the hills.

  • All the volcanic rocks of these islands are submarine stratified tuffs which are penetrated here and there by andesite or diabase dikes.

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