Batholith was first used by Suess (1901) to describe a “stock”- or “shield”-shaped igneous mass either intruded into country rock, or formed by the fusion of older basement. The usage today generally follows the definition of Daly (1933), viz., “typically a large, cross-cutting, subjacent intrusive mass, that is, one with no visible or clearly inferable floor of older, solid rock...” (Fig. 1). As such there is a gradation in scale from stocks with an area of ≪10 km2 to bosses (≪100 km2) to regional masses greater than 1,000 km2 in area. The term is sometimes spelt “bathylith” and a rarely used synonym is abyssolith. The term pluton is commonly used for a deep-seated (plutonic) intrusion, but generally for bodies considerably smaller than those referred to as batholiths.
Plan and serial cross-sections illustrating the geometry of a batholith.
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Park, A.F. (1989). Batholith . In: Petrology. Encyclopedia of Earth Science. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/0-387-30845-8_26
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