Chapter xlvii

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Though the dykes may be conveniently grouped in two series or types, which on the whole are tolerably well marked, it is not always practicable to draw any line between them, or to say to which group a particular dyke should be assigned. In some districts, however, in which they are both developed, we can separate them without difficulty. In the Argyleshire region above referred to, for example, which Mr. Clough has mapped, he finds that the abundant dykes belonging to the gregarious type run in a general N.W. or N.N.W. direction, and distinctly intersect the much scarcer and less basic dykes of the solitary type, which here run nearly E. and W. (Fig. 257). Hence, besides their composition, distinction in number, breadth, rectilinearity and persistence, the two series in that region demonstrably belong to distinct periods of eruption.[162]

[Footnote 162: Mr. Clough is inclined to suspect that the E. and W. dykes are older than the Tertiary series and may be later Palæozoic.]

The characteristic habit in gregarious dykes of occurring in crowded groups which are separated from each other by intervals of variable dimensions, marked by the presence of comparatively few dykes, is well illustrated in the district of Strath in Skye, which indeed may be taken as a typical area for this peculiarity of distribution. While the dykes are there singularly abundant in the Cambrian Limestone and the Liassic strata, they have been found by Mr. Clough and Mr. Harker to be comparatively infrequent in the tracts of Torridon Sandstone. It is not easy to understand this peculiar arrangement. As the Torridon Sandstone is the most ancient rock of the district, it probably underlies all the Cambrian and Jurassic formations, so that the dykes which penetrate these younger strata must also rise through the Torridonian rocks. Some formations appear to have been fissured more readily than others, and thus to have provided more abundant openings for the uprise of the basaltic magma from below. To the effect of such local differences in the structure of the terrestrial crust we have to add the concentration of the volcanic foci in certain areas, though there seems no means of ascertaining what part each of these causes has played in the distribution of the dykes of any particular district.

3. NATURE OF COMPONENT ROCKS

The Tertiary dykes of Britain include representatives of four distinct groups of igneous rocks. 1st, The vast majority of them consist of plagioclase-pyroxene-magnetite rocks with or without olivine. These are the normal basalts and dolerites. 2nd, A number of large dykes have a rather more acid composition and are classed as andesites. 3rd, A few dykes of trachyte have been observed in Cowal and in Skye cutting the dykes of basalt (p. 138). 4th, In some districts large numbers of still more acid dykes occur. These are sometimes crystalline in structure (granophyre), more frequently felsitic (felsite, spherulitic quartz-porphyry), and often glassy (pitchstone). In some exceptional cases the basic and acid materials are conjoined in the same dyke. Such compound varieties are described at p. 161. The acid dykes, connected as they so generally are with the large bodies of granophyre or granite, are doubtless younger than the great majority of the basic dykes. They will be treated in connection with the acid intrusions in

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