Geology and petrography of granite in Pulau Redang, Terengganu

The study area is located at the Pulau Redang that is lying close to the equator, which is in the South China Sea off the northeast coast of Peninsular Malaysia. It is located about 45km north-northeast of Kuala Terengganu. The gateway to Pulau Redang, with the closest point from the mainland, is about 22km away from Tanjung Merang. Pulau Redang is composed with two main types of lithology. They are metasandstone and granite that can divide into two crystal sizes which are coarse crystal (granite porphyry) with grey colour and fine crystal (equigranular granite) with pink colour. It is seems that metasandstones are the older rock compared to granite rock. The age of the metasandstone is Permian and more specifically, the plutonic activities existed in the Pulau Redang at Permian to early Triassic. The textural features of granite rock cast much light on the conditions under which igneous rocks consolidates from their parent magmas. They are controlled by the rate and order of crystallization, which depends in, turn on the initial temperatures. Besides, it also depends on the composition, gas content and viscosity of the magma and the pressure at which it solidifies. The main differences between granite porphyry and equigranular granite are basically based on petrographic studies.