Zoned Hydrothermal Bodies in the Serpentinite Mass of Glen Urquhart (Inverness-shire)

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Abstract
Five bodies with either visible or inferred mineral zoning occur in the serpentinite mass in Glen Urquhart. Their mineralogy and petrology suggest a hydrothermal origin, and they are grouped with other hydrothermal injection phenomena in the glen thought go be phases of Older Granite activity. The two northern bodies seem clearly similar to simple vein deposits characterized by albitite without excess alumina (corundum). The origin of the remaining three bodies is discussed and the view that they too are deposits of albitite-type is favoured. They lack an exposed albitite zone, but this does not invalidate the comparison. Albitite deposits, it is suggested, originate where moving hydrothermal solutions from granites cut ultrabasic rocks. This origin for the veins is preferred to Larsen's (1928) suggestion that the hydrothermal veins represent late-stage sodic residual liquids left after the crystallization of most of the material of “ ultrabasic magmas ”.

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