PHYLLITE (Gr. 40)XAov, a leaf, probably because they yield leaf-like plates, owing to their fissility)

This article appears in Volume V21, Page 547 of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

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PHYLLITE (Gr. 40)XAov, a leaf, probably because they yield leaf-like plates, owing to their fissility) , in petrology, a group of rocks which are in practically all cases metamorphosed argillaceous sediments, consisting essentially of quartz, chlorite and muscovite, and possessing a well-marked parallel arrangement or schistosity. They form an intermediate

term

TERM

in the

series

SERIES (a Latin word from serere, to join)

of altered clays or shaly deposits between clay-slates and mica-schists. The clay-slates have a very similar

mineral

MINERAL

constitution to the phyllites, but are finer grained and are distinguished also by a very much better cleavage. In the phyllites also white mica (muscovite or sericite) is more abundant as a

rule

RULE

than in slate, and its crystalline plates are larger; the abundance of mica gives these rocks a glossy sheen on the smooth planes of fissility. Many of the best Welsh slates are rich in small scales of white mica, which polarize brightly between crossed nicols. The Cornish slates are still more micaceous and rather coarser grained, so that they might be called mica-slates or even phyllites.
A microscopical section of a typical phyllite shows green chlorite and colourless mica both in irregular plates disposed in parallel order, with a greater or smaller amount of quartz which forms small lenticular grains elongated parallel to the foliation. Grains of iron

oxide

OXIDE

(magnetite and haematite) and black graphitic dust are very commonly present. Feldspar is absent or scarce, but some phyllites are characterized by the development of small rounded grains of albite, often in considerable numbers. The minute needles of rutile, so often seen in clay-slates, are not often met with in phyllites, but this

mineral

MINERAL

forms small prisms which may be intergroivn with black magnetite; at other times it occurs as networks of sagenite. Other phyllites contain carbonates (usually calcite but sometimes dolomite) in flat or spindle-shaped crystals, which often give evidence of crushing. Very tiny blue needles of tourmaline are by no means rare in phyllites, though readily overlooked. Garnet occurs some-times, a good example of garnetiferous phyllite being furnished by the whetstones of the Ardennes, in which there are many small isotropic crystals of magnesian garnet. Hornblende, often in branching feathery crystals, is a less frequent accessory. In some phyllites a mineral of the chloritoid group makes its

appearance

APPEARANCE (from Lat. apparere, to appear)

; this may be ottrelite, sismondine or other varieties of chloritoid, and occurs in large sub-hexagonal plates showing complex twinning, and lying across the foliation planes of the

rock

, so that they seem to have developed after the movements and pressures which gave rise to the foliation had ceased.
The structural variations presented by the phyllites are comparatively few. The most finely crystalline specimens have generally the most perfect parallel arrangement of their constituents. The foliation is generally flat or linear, but in some rocks is undulose or crumpled. From the imperfection of their cleavage phyllites are rarely suitable for roofing materials; their softness renders them valueless as road stones, but they are not uncommonly employed as inferior building materials. They are exceedingly common in all parts of the world where metamorphic rocks occur; as in the Scottish Highlands,

Cornwall

CORNWALL

, Anglesey, north-west Ireland, the Ardennes, the Harz Mountains, iSaxony, the Alps, Norway, the Appalachians, the

Great

GREAT

Lakes

district

DISTRICT

in America, &c. (J. S. F.)

End of Article: PHYLLITE (Gr. 40)XAov, a leaf, probably because they yield leaf-like plates, owing to their fissility)

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