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Evidence for two discrete centres in Skye

Abstract

ONE of the best-developed igneous areas in North-West Britain is on the Isle of Skye: in addition to extensive flood basalt lavas and their feeding dykes there are three adjacent intrusive centres across the south-east of the island1. The Eastern and Western Red Hills, usually identified as two almost contemporaneous centres, comprise surface granite outcrops in a mass 10 km across, intruded against the older basic-to-ultrabasic Cuillin centre which is of similar size and lies to the west (Fig. 1a). Using aeromagnetic, gravity and isotopic evidence we will argue that there are two structurally discrete centres at depth, which probably were intruded several million years apart.

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BROWN, G., MUSSETT, A. Evidence for two discrete centres in Skye. Nature 261, 218–220 (1976). https://doi.org/10.1038/261218a0

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