Chapter xlviii

.

In the re-opening of dyke-fissures the later intrusions have generally taken place along the walls, or where the dykes were already compound, between some of the component bands. Less frequently the first dyke has been split open along the middle, and a second injection has forced its way along the rent.

Of the first of these two types, numerous instances have now been observed in the West of Scotland. If the portion of a compound dyke exposed at the surface be limited in extent, we may be unable to determine which is the older of two parallel bands of igneous rock, though the fact that they present to each other the usual fine-grained edge due to more rapid cooling, shows that they are not one but two dykes, belonging to distinct eruptions. So far as I have noticed, where one of the dykes can be continuously traced for a considerable distance, the other is comparatively short. I infer that the shorter one is the younger of the two.

In the Strath district of Skye, Mr. Harker has recently observed that many of the basic dykes, both those older and those younger than the granophyre protrusions, are double, triple or multiple. Thus in a conspicuous dyke, more than 100 feet wide, to the south-east of Loch Kilchrist, belonging to the older series, he has detected at least six contiguous dykes which as they are traced south-eastward, in spite of their interruption by the Beinn an Dubhaich granite, can be seen to separate and take different courses, or successively die out. He remarks, further, that "many cases of apparent bifurcation of dykes are really due to the separation of distinct dykes which have run for some distance in one fissure. Sometimes apparent variations in the width of a dyke are to be explained by this dying out of one member of a double dyke. These multiple dykes are less easily detected in the newer than the older set, owing to greater uniformity of lithological type in the prevalent kinds and to the frequent absence of chilled selvages."[198] An example of a compound basic dyke cutting the crest of the gabbro-mass of the Cuillin Hills is shown in Fig. 333.

[Footnote 198: MS. notes supplied by Mr. Harker.]

Instances of the second type of compound dykes are less common. Here, instead of being re-opened along one of the walls, the fissure has been ruptured along the centre of the dyke, and a second injection of molten material has then taken place. This structure may be observed where the materials of the compound dyke are on the whole similar, such as varieties of dolerite, basalt, diabase or andesite. In these cases the rock of the central dyke is generally rather fine-grained, sometimes decidedly porphyritic, and often a true basalt. Where broad enough to show the difference of texture between margin and centre, it exhibits the usual close grain along its edges, indicative of quicker cooling. The older dyke presenting no such change at its junction with the younger, was obviously already cooled and consolidated before its rupture.

Whilst the centre of a dyke has occasionally proved to be a line of weakness which has given way under intense strains in the terrestrial crust, this rupture and the accompanying or subsequent ascent of molten material in the re-opened fissure may sometimes have been included as phases of one connected volcanic episode. In those instances, for example, which have been above described, where a central vitreous band has risen along the heart of a dyke, the petrographical affinities of the rocks may be so close as to suggest that although the main dyke had consolidated and had subsequently been ruptured along its centre by powerful earth-movements, these changes all belonged to the same period of dyke-making, and the subsequent uprise of glassy material was merely a later phase in the movements of the same subterranean magma.

But where, as probably happens in the large majority of compound dykes, there is a strongly marked difference between the respective bands of rock, we must either infer that two essentially different magmas co-existed in the volcanic reservoirs underneath, and were successively injected into the same fissures, or that a sufficient lapse of time occurred to permit a total renewal of the nature of the magma, and an uprise of this changed material into fissures which sometimes coincided with older dykes. If any interlocking of the crystals of the several bands of a compound dyke could be detected, we might suppose that the first-injected material had not become consolidated and cold before the uprise of the newer rock. But in general it would seem that so sharp a line of demarcation can be drawn between the two rocks as to indicate that their protrusion was due to two distinct and perhaps widely-separated volcanic paroxysms.

Compound dykes of basic material occur not only among the ordinary straight north-westerly series, but also among the less regular gregarious dykes and veins, such as abundantly intersect the gabbro bosses. Moreover they are to be found among the youngest intrusions, for they traverse the masses of granophyre. Conspicuous examples of such late compound dykes are displayed along the cliffs of St. Kilda, as will be more particularly described in a later Chapter. These St. Kilda dykes often occupy not vertical fissures but parallel rents with a gentle inclination (see Figs. 367, 368).

The Tertiary volcanic series of Scotland furnishes many examples of compound dykes of a much more complex character where parallel bands of some acid (granophyre, felsite, quartz-porphyry) or intermediate (andesite) rock is associated with others of the more usual basic material (dolerite, basalt, diabase). As the acid intrusions belong to a comparatively late part of the volcanic history, their modes of occurrence will be discussed in Chapters xlvi., xlvii. and xlviii. But no account of the general system of dykes would be complete without some reference to these compound examples, which will therefore be briefly described in the present section of this work.

Early in this century some striking illustrations of the association of acid and more basic rocks within the same fissure were noticed by Jameson in the island of Arran. He described and figured instances at Tormore, on the west side of that island, where a group of pitchstones and "basalts" or andesites have been successively protruded into the same fissures in the (probably Permian) red sandstones of that district.[199]

[Footnote 199: _Mineralogy of the Scottish Isles_, 1800.]

In some instances the more basic rock has been first injected, and has subsequently been disrupted, by the more acid pitchstone. In other cases the order has been the reverse. The successive ruptures have taken place sometimes along the centre, sometimes at the margins, and sometimes irregularly along the breadth of the dykes. Professor Judd has recently studied these rocks, and has given descriptions of their chemical composition and microscopic characters. He regards them as having been successively injected into the fissures from the same subterranean reservoir, in which two magmas of very different chemical constitution were simultaneously present.[200]

[Footnote 200: _Quart. Jour. Geol. Soc._ vol. xlix. (1893), p. 536. Full details of the compound dykes of Tormore and Cir Mhor in Arran, and references to previous writers will be found in this paper. The probable age of the youngest eruptive rocks of this island will be discussed in