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Intrusion - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Intrusion
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

An intrusion is liquid rock that forms under Earth's surface.

Magma from under the surface is slowly pushed up from deep
within the earth into any cracks or spaces it can find, sometimes
pushing existing country rock out of the way, a process that can
take millions of years. As the rock slowly cools into a solid, the
different parts of the magma crystallize into minerals. Many
mountain ranges, such as the Sierra Nevada in California, are
formed mostly by intrusive rock, large granite (or related rock)
formations.
Intrusions are one of the two ways igneous rock can form; the
other is extrusive, that is, a volcanic eruption or similar event.
Technically speaking, an intrusion is any formation of intrusive
igneous rock; rock formed from magma that cools and solidifies
within the crust of the planet. In contrast, an extrusion consists of
extrusive rock; rock formed above the surface of the crust.
Intrusions vary widely, from mountain-range-sized batholiths to
thin veinlike fracture fillings of aplite or pegmatite. When
exposed by erosion, these cores called batholiths may occupy
huge areas of Earth's surface. Large bodies of magma that
solidify underground before they reach the surface of the crust
are called plutons.

Devils Tower, an igneous intrusion

exposed when the surrounding softer
rock eroded away.

Coarse-grained intrusive igneous rocks that form at depth within the earth are called abyssal while those
that form near the surface are called hypabyssal. Intrusive structures are often classified according to
whether or not they are parallel to the bedding planes or foliation of the country rock: if the intrusion is
parallel the body is concordant, otherwise it is discordant.
A well-known example of an intrusion is Devils Tower.

Contents
1 Structural types
2 Characteristics
3 See also
4 References

Structural types
Intrusions can be classified according to the shape and size of the intrusive body and its relation to the
other formations into which it intrudes:

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Intrusion - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Batholith: a large irregular discordant intrusion

Dike: a relatively narrow tabular discordant body, often nearly vertical
Laccolith: concordant body with roughly flat base and
convex top, usually with a feeder pipe below
Lopolith: concordant body with roughly flat top and a
shallow convex base, may have a feeder dike or pipe
below
Phacolith: a concordant lens-shaped pluton that typically
occupies the crest of an anticline or trough of a syncline
Volcanic pipe or volcanic neck: tubular roughly vertical

Diagram showing various types of

igneous intrusion.

body that may have been a feeder vent for a volcano

Sill: a relatively thin tabular concordant body intruded
along bedding planes
Stock: a smaller irregular discordant intrusive

Characteristics
Deep-seated intrusions are recognized from the way they have
burst through the overlaying strata. Ramifying veins result from
filled cracks, and the high temperature involved in this process is
evident from the altered adjacent country rock. Since heat
dissipates slowly and since the rock is under pressure, crystals
form and no vitreous rapidly chilled matter is present. As the
intrusions have had time to rest before crystallizing, they are not
fluidal. Their contained gases have not been able to escape
through the thick layer of strata, beneath which they were
injected. Such gases form cavities, which can often be observed
in these minerals. Such gases have also resulted in many
important modifications in the crystallization of the rock.
Because their crystals are of approximately equal size these rocks
are said to be granular.

A dike intrudes into the country rock,

Baranof Island, Alaska, USA.

An intrusion (pink Notch Peak

There is typically no distinction between a first generation of

monzonite) inter-fingers (partly as a
large well-shaped crystals and a fine-grained ground-mass. The
dike) with highly metamorphosed
minerals of each have formed in a definite order, and each has
black-and-white-striped host rock
had a period of crystallization that may be very distinct or may
(Cambrian carbonate rocks). Near
have coincided with or overlapped the period of formation of
Notch Peak, House Range, Utah.
some of the other ingredients. Earlier crystals originated at a time
when most of the rock was still liquid and are more or less
perfect. Later crystals are less regular in shape because they were compelled to occupy the spaces left
between the already-formed crystals. The former case is said to be idiomorphic (or automorphic); the
latter is xenomorphic. There are also many other characteristics that serve to distinguish the members of
these two groups. For example, orthoclase is typically feldspar from granite, while its modifications
occur in lavas of similar composition. The same distinction holds for nepheline varieties. Leucite is
common in lavas but very rare in plutonic rocks. Muscovite is confined to intrusions. These differences
show the influence of the physical conditions under which consolidation takes place.
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Some intrusive rocks solidified in fissures as dikes and intrusive sills at a shallow depth beneath the
surface and are called hypabyssal. Those formed at greater depths are called plutonic or abyssal. As
might be expected, they show structures intermediate between those of extrusive and plutonic rocks.
They are very commonly porphyritic, vitreous, and sometimes even vesicular. In fact, many of them are
petrologically indistinguishable from lavas of similar composition.[1]

See also
Pluton
Volcanic rock
Methods of pluton emplacement

References
1. ^

One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the public

domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Petrology"

(https://archive.org/stream/encyclopaediabri21chisrich#page/323/mode/1up). Encyclopdia Britannica 21
(11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 323333.

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Intrusion&oldid=612134496"

Categories: Volcanology Igneous petrology Intrusions
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