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Foliation in Metamorphic Rock (Preferred Orientation)

This animation shows how squeezing or shearing a rock under metamorphic conditions can result in preferred mineral orientation. Inequant grains distributed through a soft matrix rotate into parallelism as the rock changes shape.

What a Geologist Sees: Compositional Banding in Gneiss

A glaciated surface exposing gneiss contains alternating bands of light-colored and dark-colored minerals. A geologist’s interpretation of the outcrop emphasizes the banding.

Additional Resources

The abundance of geology-related websites speaks to the active and exciting nature of this field. In the space below we link to external websites that explore topics covered in this chapter.

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