Granitetopia Encyclopedia

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Continuing our efforts to educate our customers, we built this knowledge database so that you can gain a better understanding of glossary related to natural stone products that we offer. Materials comes from the Wikipedia - the free encyclopedia. We hope you find this tool useful in your research.

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FoliationEncyclopedia Index



Foliation is any penetrative planar fabric present in rocks. Foliation is common to rocks affected by regional metamorphic compression typical of orogenic belts. Rocks exhibiting foliation include the typical metamorphic rock sequence of slate, phyllite, schist and gneiss. The slatey cleavage typical of slate is due to the parallel growth of microscopic mica crystals. In gneiss the foliation is more typically represented by compositional banding due to segregation of mineral phases. Foliated rock is also known as S-tectonite in sheared rock masses.