foliation

foliation, planar arrangement of structural or textural features in any rock type but particularly that resulting from the alignment of constituent mineral grains of a metamorphic rock of the regional variety along straight or wavy planes. Foliation often occurs parallel to original bedding, but it may not be ostensibly related to any other structural direction.

Foliation is exhibited most prominently by sheety minerals, such as mica or chlorite. However, foliation is most well-developed—that is, the rock layers have experienced the greatest amount of flattening—in the gneisses and other coarse-grained rocks of high metamorphic grade (which form under high pressure and in temperatures above 320 °C [608 °F]).

Regional metamorphism results from the general increase of temperature and pressure over a large area, and regional metamorphic rocks are usually subdivided into schist, slate, and gneiss on the basis of grain size and foliation type. The schists, for example, exhibit strong foliation with partings along well-defined planes of medium-grained micas or hornblendes. The gneisses, which are characteristically rich in feldspar and quartz, tend to be coarse-grained. Foliation among the gneisses appears as distinct alternating bands of platy minerals and coarse-grained minerals; however, gneisses do not split, or cleave, along their planes as schists do.

Few contact-metamorphic rocks (which form when an intrusion of igneous rock meets an existing rock mass) are foliated. Most, such as hornfels and granulite, tend to be granular.