Batholith

Half Dome, a quartz monzonite monolith in Yosemite National Park and part of the Sierra Nevada Batholith

A batholith (from Ancient Greek bathos 'depth' and lithos 'rock') is a large mass of intrusive igneous rock (also called plutonic rock), larger than 100 km2 (40 sq mi) in area,[1] 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).

Basic types of igneous intrusions:
1. Laccolith
2. Small dike
3. Batholith
4. Dike
5. Sill
6. Volcanic neck and pipe
7. Lopolith
Note: As a general rule, in contrast to the active volcanic vent in the figure, these names refer to the fully cooled and usually millions-of-years-old rock formations, which are the result of the underground magmatic activity shown.
  1. ^ Petersen, James F.; Sack, Dorothy; Gabler, Robert E. (2017). Physical Geography (11th ed.). Boston: Cengage Learning Inc. p. 614. ISBN 978-1-305-65264-4.