The Diorites and Associated Rocks of the Glen Tilt Complex, Perthshire

Abstract

The Glen Tilt Complex, one of the larger masses of the Newer Granites of the Central Highlands, is included in sheet 64 of the Geological Survey of Scotland. The greater part of this complex is a granite which is bounded on the south-west and southeast by an earlier series of intermediate and basic rocks. The granites described in this contribution are restricted to a small area at the south-eastern margin of the large granitic intrusion generally known as the Beinn Dearc granite. The smaller and independent intrusion of the Sron a ‘Chro’ granite and a number of smaller masses of granite associated with the marginal strip of diorites on the north-western side of Glen Tilt have also been examined. These small isolated areas appear to be contemporaneous with the intrusion of the main Beinn Dearc mass and have been intruded between the earlier diorites and the margin of the intrusion, a feature not uncommon in many of the other Scottish Newer Granites. A small independent mass of muscovite-biotite-granite intruded into quartz-mica-diorite occurs on Conlach Mhor. Although these rocks are completely isolated from both the biotite- and muscovite-biotite-granites of the main Beinn Dearc intrusion their essential similarity with the latter leaves no reasonable doubt of their common origin.