# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Laccolite

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​LACCOLITE (Gr. λάκκος, cistern, λίθος, stone), in geology, the name given by Grove K. Gilbert to intrusive masses of igneous rock possessing a cake-like form, which he first described from the Henry Mountains of southern Utah. Their characteristic is that they have spread out along the bedding planes of the strata, but are not so broad and thin as the sheets or intrusive sills which, consisting usually of basic rocks, have spread over immense distances without attaining any great thickness. Laccolites cover a comparatively small area and have greater thickness. Typically they have a domed upper surface while their base is flat. In the Henry Mountains they are from 1 to 5 m. in diameter and range in thickness up to about 5000 ft. The cause of their peculiar shape appears to be the viscosity of the rock injected, which is usually of intermediate character and comparatively rich in alkalis, belonging to the trachytes and similar lithological types. These are much less fluid than the basalts, and the latter in consequence spread out much more readily along the bedding planes, forming thin flat-topped sills. At each side the laccolites thin out rapidly so that their upper surface slopes steeply to the margins. The strata above them which have been uplifted and bent are often cracked by extension, and as the igneous materials well into the fissures a large number of dikes is produced. At the base of the laccolite, on the other hand, the strata are flat and dikes are rare, though there may be a conduit up which the magma has flowed into the laccolite. The rocks around are often much affected by contact alteration, and great masses of them have sometimes sunk into the laccolite, where they may be partly melted and absorbed.
Gilbert obtained evidence that these laccolites were filled at depths of 7000 to 10,000 ft. and did not reach the surface, giving rise to volcanoes. From the effects on the drainage of the country it seemed probable that above the laccolites the strata swelled up in flattish eminences. Often they occur side by side in groups belonging to a single period, though all the members of each group are not strictly of the same age. One laccolite may be formed on the side of an earlier one, and compound laccolites also occur. When exposed by erosion they give rise to hills, and their appearance varies somewhat with the stage of development.
In the western part of South America laccolites agreeing in all essential points with those described by Gilbert occur in considerable numbers and present some diversity of types. Occasionally they are asymmetrical, or have one steep or vertical side while the other is gently inclined. In other cases they split into a number of sheets spreading outwards through the rocks around. But the term laccolite has also been adopted by geologists in Britain and elsewhere to describe a variety of intrusive masses not strictly identical in character with those of the Henry Mountains. Some of these rest on a curved floor, like the gabbro masses of the Cuillin Hills in Skye; others are injected along a flattish plane of unconformability where one system of rocks rests on the upturned and eroded edges of an older series. An example of the latter class is furnished by the felsite mass of the Black Hill in the Pentlands, near Edinburgh, which has followed the line between the Silurian and the Old Red Sandstone, forcing the rocks upwards without spreading out laterally to any great extent.
The term laccolite has also been applied to many granite intrusions, such as those of Cornwall. We know from the evidence of mining shafts which have been sunk in the country near the edge of these granites that they slope downwards underground with an angle of twenty to thirty degrees. They have been proved also to have been injected along certain wall-marked horizons; so that although the rocks of the country have been folded in a very complicated manner the granite can often be shown to adhere closely to certain members of the stratigraphical sequence for a considerable distance. Hence it is clear that their upper surfaces are convex and gently arched, and it is conjectured that the strata must extend below them, though at a great depth, forming a floor. The definite proof of this has not been attained for no borings have penetrated the granites and reached sedimentary rocks beneath them. But often in mountainous countries where there are deep valleys the bases of great granite laccolites are exposed to view in the hill sides. These granite sills have a considerable thickness in proportion to their length, raise the rocks above them and fill them with dikes, and behave generally like typical laccolites. In contradistinction to intrusions of this type with a well-defined floor we may place the batholiths, bysmaliths, plutonic plugs and stocks, which have vertical margins and apparently descend to unknown depths. It has been conjectured that masses of this type eat their way upwards by dissolving the rock above them and absorbing it, or excavate a passage by breaking up the roof of the space they occupy while the fragments detached sink downwards and are lost in the ascending magma.  (J. S. F.)