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A pluton in geology is an intrusive igneous rock body that crystallized from a magma slowly cooling below the surface of the Earth. Plutons include batholiths, dikes, sills, laccoliths, lopoliths, 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 are granite, granodiorite, tonalite, and quartz 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 and Plutonism regarding the origin of basalt.

See also

• Intrusion

References

• Glazner, A.F., Bartley, J.M., Coleman, D.S., Gray, W. and Taylor, R.Z. (2004) "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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