http://www.stanford.edu/dept/HPS/MayorGeomythology.pdf
- Here http://www.dwrobertson-photography.com/ ... ofSkye.jpg is a map of the Isle of Skye and the Cuillin Hills there in NW Scotland.- The unusual Cuillin Mountains of [the Isle of] Skye, Scotland, were fabled to have been formed when the Sun hurled his fiery spear into the ground. Where it struck, a huge blister or boil appeared and grew, swelling until it burst and discharged molten, glowing material that congealed to form mountains perpetually covered in snow. Geologists have remarked that the legend accurately recounts the formation of a volcanic dome, which grows, bursts, and spews glowing-hot magma. The Cuillins consist of glabbro [i.e. gabbro], crystallized molten matter, and the surrounding mountains of granite, the Red Hills, are indeed snow-capped in contrast to the steeper Cuillins.
- Here http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&ie=UT ... 59&t=h&z=9 is a satellite map of the area. You may want to switch to a Terrain view, as the satellite view makes the hills look like a valley.
- From the above and the following, it appears that such discharges transform granite into gabbro, transmuting silica into calcium and or iron, etc. Also, the ocean floors may initially have been granite, which mega-discharges may have transmuted into basalt, which latter is much like gabbro.
- Gabbro http://geology.about.com/library/bl/images/blgabbro.htm
- Basalt http://geology.about.com/library/bl/images/blbasalt.htmis a dark, coarse-grained rock that is intrusive and igneous—that is, plutonic, like granite. But unlike granite, gabbro is low in silica and has no quartz; also gabbro has no alkali feldspar, only plagioclase that often is dark with a high calcium content. The other dark minerals may include amphibole, pyroxene and sometimes biotite, olivine, magnetite, ilmenite and apatite. The extrusive (erupted) equivalent of gabbro is basalt.
is a dark, heavy, iron-rich and silica-poor volcanic rock that makes up most of the world's oceanic crust. It is fine-grained so that the individual minerals are not visible, but they include pyroxene, plagioclase feldspar and olivine. These minerals are visible in the coarse-grained, plutonic version of basalt called gabbro.
