Batholiths of Southern Rhodesia

Abstract

THE problem of the formation of the larger masses of granite is receiving considerable attention by geologists at the present time, and it is hoped that the following observations and surmises regarding the granites of Southern Rhodesia may be of more than local interest. Southern Rhodesia forms part of a typical Pre-Cambrian shield and consists, apart from younger formations, of about 74,000 square miles of granite and gneiss intrusive into 13,000 square miles of older rocks. The area has undergone tremendous denudation, which took place mainly during the Pre-Cambrian, and the structures exposed, therefore, are different from those seen in regions where only the peaks of granite masses have been uncovered.At the outset I wish to thank Mr. H. B. Maufe for permission to draw from the store of information, much of it unpublished, which he has collected in the Geological Survey Office at Salisbury, and also for having the accompanying illustrations drawn in the office. This information includes both petrological and structural data, but it is only the structural aspect of the problem which it is intended to discuss here.