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A speckled, coarse-grained igneous rock consisting essentially of plagioclase, feldspar, and hornblende or other mafic minerals.
‘Among the 30 different types of stone recognized are varieties of diorite, granite, bedded tuff, sandstones, limestones, and tufa.’
‘The thrust sheet overlying the Delaney Dome Formation is composed of the basic Ballyconneely Amphibolite and interbanded quartz diorite and hornblende gneiss that intrude the Dalradian sediments.’
‘It is dominated by variably foliated, medium-grained, even-textured to porphyritic biotite hornblende tonalite and quartz diorite.’
‘All granitoids in the footwall of the Simav detachment are dominated by medium - to coarse-grained granite, granodiorite, quartz monzonite, diorite and syenogranite.’
‘The clasts range from angular to subrounded and show a weak preferred orientation when elongate; they include micaceous siltstone, fine-grained sandstone, tuffaceous rock, andesite and medium-grained diorite.’
Origin
Early 19th century: coined in French, formed irregularly from Greek diorizein ‘distinguish’ + -ite.