What Causes Granite To Turn Into Gneiss

By heat or pressure sometimes both.

What causes granite to turn into gneiss.

The change from granite to gneiss is not mineralogical i e. These minerals are then transported in streams and rivers and often end up as sediments in the oceans. Minerals are seen arranged in bands in gneiss. The mineral composition of both granite and gneiss is same but alteration of granite because of very high pressure and temperature leads to the formation of gneiss.

The appearance of granular minerals is what marks the transition into gneiss. Granite gneiss can also form through the metamorphism of sedimentary. By heat or pressure sometimes both. This is due to the long minerals in the original granite lining up perpendicular to a regional stress field.

Granites at the surface are exposed to weathering in which they break down into mostly quartz and feldspars. With still more metamorphism gneisses can turn to migmatite and then totally recrystallize into granite. If it is part of a mountain it gets weathered eroded and transported to the ocean. Well gneiss dosent turn into granite.

Granite turns into gneiss. More fleshed out fuller and still correct answer. Not all gneiss is obtained from granite and there are also diorite gneiss biotite gneiss garnet gneiss and so on. Despite its highly altered nature gneiss can preserve chemical evidence of its history especially in minerals like zircon which resist metamorphism.

Intense heat and pressure can also metamorphose granite into a banded rock known as granite gneiss this transformation is usually more of a structural change than a mineralogical transformation. When subjected to intense heat and pressure granite will. If the granite gets buried deep in the crust it often changes to a gneiss. Heat and pressure cause granite to become gneiss and change sandstone into quartzite.

These rocks primarily consist of quartz feldspar and mica. Short succinct and correct answer. There are no chemical changes but structural. All rocks undergo a series of processes called the rock cycle where one type of rock changes into another.

Another important structural change is the development of foliation or linear appearance in a gneiss. Metamorphic rocks form from heat and pressure which changes the original or parent rock into a completely new rock.