wehrlite

W4E1H4R1L1I1T1E1

noun

A type of peridotite that is a mixture of olivine and clinopyroxene.

Scrabble 14

Meanings

nounwehrlite (countable and uncountable, plural wehrlites)

plural wehrlites

  1. countableuncountablegeographyA type of peridotite that is a mixture of olivine and clinopyroxene.
    1 more example

    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.

    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
  2. countableuncountablechemistryA naturally-occurring alloy of bismuth and tellurium, primarily Bi₂Te₃.

    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.

    1969, William C. Kelly, Edwin N. Goddard, Telluride Ores of Boulder County, Colorado, Boulder, Colorado: The Geological Society of America, Inc., page 186

Origin

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

Full word history & related roots →
Cite this entry
APA

wehrlite. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/wehrlite

MLA

“wehrlite.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/wehrlite. Accessed November 3, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “wehrlite,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/wehrlite.

Source: wehrlite on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.