Geology Of The Isle Of Mull
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Geology Of The Isle Of Mull
The geology of the Isle of Mull in Scotland is dominated by the development during the early Palaeogene period of a ‘ volcanic central complex’ associated with the opening of the Atlantic Ocean. The bedrock of the larger part of the island is formed by basalt lava flows ascribed to the Mull Lava Group erupted onto a succession of Mesozoic sedimentary rocks during the Palaeocene epoch. Precambrian and Palaeozoic rocks occur at the island's margins. A number of distinct deposits and features such as raised beaches were formed during the Quaternary period. Precambrian and Palaeozoic rocks The central complex is underlain by the Neoproterozoic age metamorphosed Moine rocks and is intruded into them. Moine Rocks of the Glenfinnan Group occur in places around the Mull Central Complex and others from the Glenfinnan and Morar groups occur on the Ross of Mull. Dalradian Semipelites and metalimestones of the Appin Group occur within the Loch Don Anticline in the east of the isla ...
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Isle Of Mull
The Isle of Mull or simply Mull ( ) is the second-largest island of the Inner Hebrides (after Skye) and lies off the west coast of Scotland in the Council areas of Scotland, council area of Argyll and Bute. Covering , Mull is the fourth-largest island in Scotland. From 2001 to 2020, the population has gradually increased: during 2020 it was estimated to be 3,000, in the United Kingdom Census 2011, 2011 census it was about 2,800, and in 2001, it was measured at 2,667 people. It has the eighth largest island population in Scotland. In the summer, these numbers are augmented by an influx of many tourists. Much of the year-round population lives in the colourful main settlement of Tobermory, Mull, Tobermory. There are two distilleries on the island: the Tobermory distillery, formerly named Ledaig, produces single malt Scotch whisky and another, opened in 2019 and located in the vicinity of Tiroran, which produces Whitetail Gin. Mull is host to numerous sports competitions, nota ...
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Intruded
Intrusive rock is formed when magma penetrates existing rock, crystallizes, and solidifies underground to form ''intrusions'', such as batholiths, dikes, sills, laccoliths, and volcanic necks.Intrusive RocksIntrusive rocks accessdate: March 27, 2017.Igneous intrusive rocks, accessdate: March 27, 2017.Britannica.comintrusive rock , geology , Britannica.com accessdate: March 27, 2017. Intrusion is one of the two ways igneous rock can form. The other is extrusion, such as a volcanic eruption or similar event. An intrusion is any body of intrusive igneous rock, formed from magma that cools and solidifies within the crust of the planet. In contrast, an ''extrusion'' consists of extrusive rock, formed above the surface of the crust. Some geologists use the term plutonic rock synonymously with intrusive rock, but other geologists subdivide intrusive rock, by crystal size, into coarse-grained plutonic rock (typically formed deeper in the Earth's crust in batholiths or stocks) and me ...
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Gabbro
Gabbro ( ) is a phaneritic (coarse-grained and magnesium- and iron-rich), mafic intrusive igneous rock formed from the slow cooling magma into a holocrystalline mass deep beneath the Earth's surface. Slow-cooling, coarse-grained gabbro is chemically equivalent to rapid-cooling, fine-grained basalt. Much of the Earth's oceanic crust is made of gabbro, formed at mid-ocean ridges. Gabbro is also found as plutons associated with continental volcanism. Due to its variant nature, the term ''gabbro'' may be applied loosely to a wide range of intrusive rocks, many of which are merely "gabbroic". By rough analogy, gabbro is to basalt as granite is to rhyolite. Etymology The term "gabbro" was used in the 1760s to name a set of rock types that were found in the ophiolites of the Apennine Mountains in Italy. It was named after Gabbro, a hamlet near Rosignano Marittimo in Tuscany. Then, in 1809, the German geologist Christian Leopold von Buch used the term more restrictively in his d ...
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Diorite
Diorite ( ) is an intrusive rock, intrusive igneous rock formed by the slow cooling underground of magma (molten rock) that has a moderate content of silica and a relatively low content of alkali metals. It is Intermediate composition, intermediate in composition between low-silica (mafic) gabbro and high-silica (felsic) granite. Diorite is found in mountain-building belts (''orogens'') on the margins of continents. It has the same composition as the fine-grained volcanic rock, andesite, which is also common in orogens. Diorite has been used since prehistoric times as decorative stone. It was used by the Akkadian Empire of Sargon of Akkad for funerary sculptures, and by many later civilizations for sculptures and building stone. Description Diorite is an intrusive rock, intrusive igneous rock composed principally of the silicate minerals plagioclase feldspar (typically andesine), biotite, hornblende, and sometimes pyroxene. The chemical composition of diorite is Intermedia ...
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Granodiorite
Granodiorite ( ) is a coarse-grained (phaneritic) intrusive igneous rock similar to granite, but containing more plagioclase feldspar than orthoclase feldspar. The term banatite is sometimes used informally for various rocks ranging from granite to diorite, including granodiorite. The term ''granodiorite'' was first used by George F. Becker, G. F. Becker (1893) to describe granitic rocks in the Sierra Nevada, United States. Composition According to the QAPF diagram, granodiorite has a greater than 20% quartz by volume, and between 65% and 90% of the feldspar is plagioclase. A greater amount of plagioclase would designate the rock as tonalite. Granodiorite is felsic to intermediate composition, intermediate in composition. It is the Intrusive rock, intrusive igneous equivalent of the extrusive igneous dacite. It contains a large amount of sodium (Na) and calcium (Ca) rich plagioclase, potassium feldspar, quartz, and minor amounts of muscovite mica as the lighter colored miner ...
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Monzonite
Monzonite is an igneous intrusive rock, formed by slow cooling of underground magma that has a moderate silica content and is enriched in alkali metal oxides. Monzonite is composed mostly of plagioclase and alkali feldspar. Syenodiorite is an obsolescent term for monzonite or for monzodiorite.Le Maitre, R.W., ''Igneous Rocks: A Classification and Glossary of Terms'' Cambridge University Press, 2nd ed, pp. 113 Larvikite is a particular form of monzonite. Description Monzonite is a coarse-grained ( phaneritic) igneous rock. Such rocks are classified by their relative percentages of quartz, plagioclase, alkali feldspar, and feldspathoid (the QAPF classification). Monzonite is defined as rock having less than 5% quartz in its QAPF fraction and in which alkali feldspar makes up between 35% and 65% of the total feldspar content. If quartz constitutes greater than 5% of the QAPF fraction, the rock is termed a quartz monzonite, while if feldspathoids are present as up to 10% of ...
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Petrology
Petrology () is the branch of geology that studies rocks, their mineralogy, composition, texture, structure and the conditions under which they form. Petrology has three subdivisions: igneous, metamorphic, and sedimentary petrology. Igneous and metamorphic petrology are commonly taught together because both make heavy use of chemistry, chemical methods, and phase diagrams. Sedimentary petrology is commonly taught together with stratigraphy because it deals with the processes that form sedimentary rock. Modern sedimentary petrology is making increasing use of chemistry. Background Lithology was once approximately synonymous with petrography, but in current usage, lithology focuses on macroscopic hand-sample or outcrop-scale description of rocks while petrography is the speciality that deals with microscopic details. In the petroleum industry, lithology, or more specifically mud logging, is the graphic representation of geological formations being drilled through and drawn ...
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Caledonian Orogeny
The Caledonian orogeny was a mountain-building cycle recorded in the northern parts of the British Isles, the Scandinavian Caledonides, Svalbard, eastern Greenland and parts of north-central Europe. The Caledonian orogeny encompasses events that occurred from the Ordovician to Early Devonian, roughly 490–390 million years ago ( Ma). It was caused by the closure of the Iapetus Ocean when the Laurentia and Baltica continents and the Avalonia microcontinent collided. The orogeny is named for Caledonia, the Latin name for Scotland. The term was first used in 1885 by Austrian geologist Eduard Suess for an episode of mountain building in northern Europe that predated the Devonian period. Geologists like Émile Haug and Hans Stille saw the Caledonian event as one of several episodic phases of mountain building that had occurred during Earth's history.McKerrow ''et al.'' (2002) Current understanding has it that the Caledonian orogeny encompasses a number of tectonic phases th ...
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Pluton
In geology, an igneous intrusion (or intrusive body or simply intrusion) is a body of intrusive igneous rock that forms by crystallization of magma slowly cooling below the surface of the Earth. Intrusions have a wide variety of forms and compositions, illustrated by examples like the Palisades Sill of New York and New Jersey; the Henry Mountains of Utah; the Bushveld Igneous Complex of South Africa; Shiprock in New Mexico; the Ardnamurchan intrusion in Scotland; and the Sierra Nevada Batholith of California. Because the solid country rock into which magma intrudes is an excellent insulator, cooling of the magma is extremely slow, and intrusive igneous rock is coarse-grained ( phaneritic). Intrusive igneous rocks are classified separately from extrusive igneous rocks, generally on the basis of their mineral content. The relative amounts of quartz, alkali feldspar, plagioclase, and feldspathoid is particularly important in classifying intrusive igneous rocks. Intru ...
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Dalradian
The Dalradian Supergroup (informally and traditionally the Dalradian) is a stratigraphic unit (a sequence of rock strata) in the lithostratigraphy of the Grampian Highlands of Scotland and in the north and west of Ireland. The diverse assemblage of rocks which constitute the supergroup extend across Scotland from Islay in the west to Fraserburgh in the east and are confined by the Great Glen Fault to the northwest and the Highland Boundary Fault to the southeast. Much of Shetland east of the Walls Boundary Fault is also formed from Dalradian rocks. Dalradian rocks extend across the north of Ireland from County Antrim in the north east to Clifden on the Atlantic coast, although obscured by younger Palaeogene lavas and tuffs or Carboniferous rocks in large sections. Historical The land to the southeast of the Great Glen was the old Celtic region of Dál Riata (Dalriada), and in 1891 Archibald Geikie proposed the name Dalradian as a convenient provisional designation for the com ...
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Marble
Marble is a metamorphic rock consisting of carbonate minerals (most commonly calcite (CaCO3) or Dolomite (mineral), dolomite (CaMg(CO3)2) that have recrystallized under the influence of heat and pressure. It has a crystalline texture, and is typically not Foliation (geology), foliated (Layered intrusion, layered), although there are exceptions. In geology, the term ''marble'' refers to metamorphosed limestone, but its use in stonemasonry more broadly encompasses unmetamorphosed limestone. The extraction of marble is performed by quarrying. Marble production is dominated by four countries: China, Italy, India and Spain, which account for almost half of world production of marble and decorative stone. Because of its high hardness and strong wear resistance, and because it will not be deformed by temperature, marble is often used in Marble sculpture, sculpture and construction. Etymology The word "marble" derives from the Ancient Greek (), from (), "crystalline rock, shin ...
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Semipelite
A pelite () or metapelite is a metamorphosed fine-grained sedimentary rock, i.e. mudstone or siltstone. The term was earlier used by geologists to describe a clay-rich, fine-grained clastic sediment or sedimentary rock, i.e. mud or a mudstone, the metamorphosed version of which would technically have been a ''metapelite''. It was equivalent to the now little-used Latin-derived term lutite.Potter, P.E., J.B. Maynard, and P.J. Depetris (2005) ''Muds and Mudstones.'' New York, New York, Springer. 279 pp. Neuendorf, K.K.E., J.P. Mehl, Jr., and J.A. Jackson, eds. (2005) ''Glossary of Geology'' (5th ed.). Alexandria, Virginia, American Geological Institute. 779 pp. A semipelite is defined in part as having similar chemical composition but being of a crystalloblastic nature. Pettijohn (1975) gives the following descriptive terms based on grain size, avoiding the use of terms such as clay or argillaceous which carry an implication of chemical composition. The Ancient Greek terms are m ...
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