This book is for undergraduates, postgraduates and research workers who wish to gain an insight into present ideas and speculations on the origin of granite batholiths. It is a summary of the proceedings of a one-day meeting of the Geochemistry Group of the Mineralogical Society held at the University of liverpool on the 2nd May 1979, entitled The Origin of Granite Batholiths: Geochemical Evidence. <...>

This book is mainly about the field geology of granites at all scales from that of a single outcrop to plutons and batholiths. All field geologists work initially at the scale of the outcrop, consequently most of the phenomena treated herein are those which are visible at outcrop scale. However, granites typically occur as plutons and batholiths, some of which are so large as to apparently defy any effort at systematic treatment. Having had the opportunity of mapping two very large and very different batholiths, namely the Coastal Batholith of Peru and the tin granites of Southeast Asia, I have found that it is possible to map large batholiths within a relatively short time, so that the geology of the batholith as a whole can be appreciated. Moreover batholiths are one of the most common modes of granite occurrence, so it makes sense to study them at their natural scale <...>