(n.) A crystalline rock, consisting, like granite, of quartz, feldspar, and mica, but having these materials, especially the mica, arranged in planes, so that it breaks rather easily into coarse slabs or flags. Hornblende sometimes takes the place of the mica, and it is then called hornblendic / syenitic gneiss. Similar varieties of related rocks are also called gneiss.
Example Sentences:
(1) Houses located on a granite, ortho-gneiss or verrucano subsoil have a cellar 222Rn level that is on the average 4.4 times higher than houses which are built on grey-schist or sediments.
(2) These include thermophilic and mesophilic oak-forest communities on loess and communities of acid oak forests on gneiss.
Schist
Definition:
(n.) Any crystalline rock having a foliated structure (see Foliation) and hence admitting of ready division into slabs or slates. The common kinds are mica schist, and hornblendic schist, consisting chiefly of quartz with mica or hornblende and often feldspar.
Example Sentences:
(1) Houses located on a granite, ortho-gneiss or verrucano subsoil have a cellar 222Rn level that is on the average 4.4 times higher than houses which are built on grey-schist or sediments.
(2) Several black-schist figures have been dug up showing the Buddha standing, meditating, preaching and fasting.