- Pluton
A pluton in
geology is anintrusive igneous rock body that crystallized from amagma slowly cooling below the surface of theEarth . Plutons includebatholith s, dikes, sills,laccolith s,lopolith s, and other igneous bodies. In practice, "pluton" usually refers to a distinctive mass of igneous rock, typically kilometers in dimension, without a tabular shape like those of dikes and sills. Batholiths commonly are aggregations of plutons. The most common rock types in plutons aregranite ,granodiorite ,tonalite , andquartz diorite .The term originated from "Pluto", the ancient Roman god of the underworld. The use of the name and concept goes back to the beginnings of the science of geology in the late 1700s and the then hotly debated theories of
Neptunism ,Vulcanism andPlutonism regarding the origin ofbasalt .See also
*
Intrusion References
* Glazner, A.F., Bartley, J.M., Coleman, D.S., Gray, W. and Taylor, R.Z. (2004) [http://www.gsajournals.org/gsaonline/?request=get-document&doi=10.1130%2F1052-5173(2004)014%3C0004:APAOMO%3E2.0.CO%3B2 "Are plutons assembled over millions of years by amalgamation from small magma chambers?"] , "GSA Today", 14 (4:April), p. 4–11
* Young, Davis A. (2003) "Mind Over Magma: the Story of Igneous Petrology", Princeton University Press, ISBN 0-691-10279-1
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