ECLOGITE - Saualpe, Austria (small specimen from the type locality)
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Small specimen from the type locality
Saualpe, Carinthia, Eastern Alps, Austria
Eclogite is a colourful, dense and heavy rock with pink garnets and green omphacite (a variety of augite). It was originally ocean crust and was formed as the ocean floor was forced down or ‘subducted’ deep into the mantle by plate tectonics, converting the igneous rocks basalt or gabbro into the much rarer metamorphic rock eclogite.
In the Saualpe-Koralpe region of Austria the rocks have experienced high-pressure metamorphism during the Cretaceous period and they contain eclogite lenses embedded in mica schist, gneiss, marble and amphibolite. This region is the ‘type locality’ for eclogite. It was first discovered here in the early 19th century.
This small sample was collected in 2000 and is from a teaching collection. It has two cut edges. It is packed with tiny red garnets which can be seen most clearly with a hand lens.
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Size: approx. 7 x 4 x 1.5 centimetres
Weight: 112 grams
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