A type of igneous rock with a granular texture composed of gabbro (a dark, heavy rock made of pyroxene and plagioclase), formed from slowly cooled magma.
From 'grano-' (grain) + 'gabbro' (an Italian word for dark igneous rock, possibly from a place name in Italy). Coined in the late 1800s to describe rocks with gabbro composition and granular structure.
Gabbro and granogabbro are the oceanic counterparts to granite and granodiorite—they form the foundation of the ocean floor, and we know more about the moon's gabbros from rock samples brought back by Apollo astronauts than we know about gabbro at the deepest ocean trenches.
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