Sunday, November 20, 2011

What is batholith?where could we find batholith?is it kind of rock?

Nothing mysterious, and a geology question.





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).





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.





Quoted from wikipedia.

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