Ophitic Structure, name given by petrologists to a structure seen in various crystalline igneous rocks, in which large plates of a pyroxene are penetrated and divided, as it were, into small portions, by crystals of feldspar. The separated portions of the pyroxene, however, are in crystalline continuity, since they all possess the same optic orientation.
Ophitic Structure
Chambers's Encyclopaedia, Volume 7: Maltebrun to Pearson, p. 610
Source scan(s): p. 0623