SILL

also called sheet tabular igneous intrusion emplaced parallel to the bedding of the enclosing rock. Although they may have vertical to horizontal orientations, nearly horizontal sills are the most common. Sills may be a fraction of an inch to hundreds of feet thick and up to hundreds of miles long. Rock compositions of all types are found in sills; the famous basic sills have received much attention because of the knowledge they provide concerning the crystallization behaviour of such magmas. Sills can be subdivided on the basis of the number of intrusions that have formed them and the variability of the rock types involved: a simple sill results from a single intrusive; a multiple sill is formed by two or more intrusions; and a composite sill is composed of more than one rock type emplaced during more than one intrusive episode.