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dolerite

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dolerite

Igneous rock formed below the Earth's surface, a form of basalt, containing relatively little silica (mafic in composition).

Dolerite is a medium-grained (hypabyssal) basalt and forms in shallow intrusions, such as dykes, which cut across the rock strata, and sills, which push between beds of sedimentary rock. When exposed at the surface, dolerite weathers into spherical lumps.

In the UK the term ‘diabase’ is used as an alternative to dolerite, often implying an altered dolerite, as distinct from fresh rock.


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Coeval activity of this age is represented globally by the Central Scandinavian Dolerite Complex (sills) of the Baltic Shield.
Folk-geology was similarly attuned to reading the landscape for water, prospecting dry river beds for graafwater (spade water) trapped by seekoei gatte (hippopotamus holes) and dolerite dykes and everywhere else seeking out the dolerite water klip (water stone), keerbanke or keerdamme (weirs) indicating and caching underground water.
Bedrock float includes altered metasediments displaying fresh, disseminated pyrite and coarse grained dolerite.
 
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