batholith

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Half Dome, a granite monolith in Yosemite National Park and part of the Sierra Nevada batholith.

A batholith (from Greek bathos, depth + lithos, rock) is a large emplacement of igneous intrusive (also called plutonic) rock that forms from cooled magma deep in the Earth's crust. Batholiths are almost always made mostly of felsic or intermediate rock-types, such as granite, quartz monzonite, or diorite (see also granite dome).

Formation

Although they may appear uniform, batholiths are in fact structures with complex histories and compositions. They are composed of multiple masses, or plutons, bodies of igneous rock of irregular dimensions (typically at least several kilometers) that can be distinguished from adjacent igneous rock by some combination of criteria including age, composition, texture, or mappable structures. Individual plutons are crystallized from magma that traveled toward the surface from a zone of partial melting near the base of the Earth's crust.

Traditionally, these plutons have been considered to form by ascent of relatively buoyant magma in large masses called plutonic diapirs. Because the diapirs are liquified and very hot, they tend to rise through the surrounding native "country" rock, pushing it aside and partially melting it. Most diapirs do not reach the surface to form volcanoes, but instead slow down, cool, and usually solidify 5 to 30 kilometers underground as plutons (hence the use of the word pluton; in reference to the Roman god of the underworld Pluto). It has also been proposed^[who?] that plutons commonly are formed not by diapiric ascent of large magma diapirs, but rather by aggregation of smaller volumes of magma that ascended as dikes.^{[citation needed]}

A batholith is formed when many plutons converge to form a huge expanse of granitic rock. Some batholiths are mammoth, paralleling past and present subduction zones and other heat sources for hundreds of kilometers in continental crust. One such batholith is the Sierra Nevada Batholith, which is a continuous granitic formation that makes up much of the Sierra Nevada in California. An even larger batholith, the Coast Plutonic Complex is found predominantly in the Coast Mountains of western Canada, and extends for 1,800 kilometers and reaches into southeastern Alaska.

Surface expression and erosion

A batholith is an exposed area of (mostly) continuous plutonic rock that covers an area larger than 100 square kilometers. Areas smaller than 100 square kilometers are called stocks.^[1] However, the majority of batholiths visible at the surface (via outcroppings) have areas far greater than 100 square kilometers. These areas are exposed to the surface through the process of erosion accelerated by continental uplift acting over many tens of millions to hundreds of millions of years. This process has removed several tens of square kilometers of overlying rock in many areas, exposing the once deeply buried batholiths.

Batholiths exposed at the surface are subjected to huge pressure differences between their former location deep in the earth and their new location at or near the surface. As a result, their crystal structure expands slightly and over time. This manifests itself by a form of mass wasting called exfoliation. This form of erosion causes convex and relatively thin sheets of rock to slough off the exposed surfaces of batholiths (a process accelerated by frost wedging). The result: fairly clean and rounded rock faces. A well-known result of this process is Half Dome, located in Yosemite Valley.

List of batholiths

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Africa

• Aswan Granite Batholith
• Cape Coast BatholithGhana

Europe

• Leinster Batholith
• Cornubian batholith
• Ljusdal Batholith
• Mt-Louis-Andorra Batholith

North America

• British Virgin Islands
• Chambers-Strathy Batholith
• Enchanted Rock
• Golden Horn Batholith
• Idaho Batholith
• Sierra Nevada Batholith
• South Mountain Batholith, Nova Scotia
• Peninsular Batholith
• Stone Mountain
• Pike's Peak Granite Batholith
• Chilliwack batholith

Oceania

• Moruya Batholith
• Median Batholith, New Zealand

South America

• Peruvian Coastal Batholith
• Cordillera Blanca Batholith
• Chilean Coastal Batholith
• Panguipulli Batholith
• Patagonian Batholith

• Northern Patagonian Batholith
• Southern Patagonian Batholith

India/Tibet

• Trans-Himalayan Batholith
• Karakorum Batholith

See also

• Pluton
• Granite dome
• Laccolith
• Dike
• Sill
• Stock
• Volcanic plug
• Bald Rock Dome

References

This article includes a list of references, related reading or external links, but its sources remain unclear because it lacks inline citations. Please improve this article by introducing more precise citations. (September 2009)

• Plummer, McGeary, Carlson, Physical Geology, Eighth Edition (McGraw-Hill: Boston, 1999) pages 61–63 ISBN 0-697-37404-1
• Glazner, Bartley, Coleman, Gray, Taylor, Are plutons assembled over millions of years by amalgamation from small magma chambers?, GSA Today: Vol. 14, No. 4, pp. 4–11

External links

• Idaho Batholith
• The Cornubian Batholith