Word.ws English Dictionary

hyaloclast

hyaloclast noun: a volcanic glass fragment formed by hot lava rapidly cooling when it encounters water or ice, causing it to shatter into small, glassy pieces.

Noun

hyaloclast (plural hyaloclasts)

  1. A volcanic glass fragment formed by hot lava rapidly cooling when it encounters water or ice, causing it to shatter into small, glassy pieces.
    • Hyaloclasts occur partly between the individual lava flows, partly in the vents penetrating the volcanic formations.1974, Acta Geologica, volume 18, page 388
    • Suite IV represents sediment gravity flow deposits near a deep submarine vent, whereas Suite V represents a mixture of hemipelagic mud and epiclastic sand which incorporated some hyaloclasts.1987, Brian J. Taylor, N. F. Exon, Marine Geology, Geophysics, and Geochemistry of the Woodlark Basin-Solomon Islands (page 300)

Forms of hyaloclast

pluralhyaloclasts

Origin of hyaloclast

From hyalo- + clast.

Questions about hyaloclast

What does hyaloclast mean?
Hyaloclast means a volcanic glass fragment formed by hot lava rapidly cooling when it encounters water or ice, causing it to shatter into small, glassy pieces.
What part of speech is hyaloclast?
Hyaloclast is a noun.
What is the plural of hyaloclast?
The plural of hyaloclast is hyaloclasts.

Words near hyaloclast in the dictionary

  1. hyalins
  2. hyalite
  3. hyalites
  4. hyalitis
  5. hyalo-
  6. hyaloclast
  7. hyaloclastite
  8. hyaloclastites
  9. hyaloclasts
  10. hyalocyte
  11. hyalocytes

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: hyaloclast (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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