wehrlite

English

Etymology

From Wehrle +‎ -ite, after the Czech professor Alois Wehrle.

Noun

wehrlite (countable and uncountable, plural wehrlites)

1. (petrology) A type of peridotite that is a mixture of olivine and clinopyroxene.
   • 1982 November 26, R. N. Brothers, M. Delaloye, “Obducted ophiolites of North Island, New Zealand: origin, age, emplacement and tectonic implications for Tertiary and Quaternary volcanicity”, in New Zealand Journal of Geology and Geophysics, volume 25, number 2, →ISSN, pages 257–258:

     Even within a single massif the igneous suite may be highly variable and range in character from quartz-normative tholeiitic to under-saturated alkaline. Rock types include wehrlite, olivine pyroxenite and hornblendite; teschenite, eucrite, and olivine, hypersthene, and hornblende gabbros; diorite, trondhjemite, alkaline syenite, and granophyre; augite, hypersthene, and oligoclase basalts and dolerites; variolite and camptonite.

2. (mineralogy) A naturally-occurring alloy of bismuth and tellurium, primarily Bi₂Te₃.
   • 1969, William C. Kelly, Edwin N. Goddard, Telluride Ores of Boulder County, Colorado, Boulder, Colorado: The Geological Society of America, Inc., page 186:

     While tetradymite has been recorded in shallow settings (e.g., Boulder County belt), this mineral along with other bismuth tellurides like wehrlite, tellurbismuth, and so forth (see Thompson, 1949) seem to be most common in mesothermal and even more intense settings.