The Ancient Volcanoes of Great Britain, Volume 2 (of 2)Geikie, Archibald
Science
The Ancient Volcanoes of Great Britain, Volume 2 (of 2)
Geikie, Archibald
Volcanoes -- Great Britain
In a few examples, the progress of denudation has not advanced so far
that the cone cannot still be partially made out amidst its surrounding
masses of tuff. One of the most interesting of these is Largo Law, of
which an outline has been given in Fig. 209. The accompanying section
(Fig. 226) represents what appears to me to be the structure of this
hill. Each of the two now conjoined cones was probably in succession
the vent of the volcano. The southern and rather lower eminence, as
already mentioned, is traversed by rib-like dykes of basalt, which
point towards its top, where there is a bed of the same rock underlying
a capping of tuff. On its eastern declivity lies the basalt stream
already described (p. 87). The higher cone is surmounted by a cake of
basalt which, as I have above suggested, may have solidified at the
bottom of the latest crater. Of course all trace of the crater has
disappeared, but the general conical form of the volcanic mass remains.
Doubtless, still more of the old volcano would have been removed by
denudation but for the protection afforded to the tuff by the intrusion
of the basalt. The upper dotted lines in the figure are inserted merely
to indicate hypothetically how the cone may originally have stood.
On the west side the sheets of tuff which were thrown out over the
surrounding country have been almost entirely removed, but on the east
and south they still cover an extensive area. (See Fig. 208).
[Illustration: Fig. 225.--Columnar basalt in the neck of Kincraig,
Elie, seen from the west.]
[Illustration: Fig. 226.--Section across Largo Law.
_l_ _l_, Lower Carboniferous strata; _t_, tuff of cones; _t'_, tuff
of plain beyond the cones; B B, basalt ascending vents and sending
out veins: B', basalt which has probably flowed out at the surface.
The dotted lines are suggestive of the original outline of the hill.
]
(2) _Sills._--In the Clyde coal-field and in the basin of the Firth
of Forth, among the vast number of sills which there traverse the
Carboniferous formations, it is possible that some belong to the
Permian volcanic period (see vol. i. p. 474). Where the sheets have
been intruded along horizons that lie below the upper stratigraphical
limit of the puy eruptions, they may not unnaturally be held to belong
to these manifestations of volcanic energy, though it is obviously
quite conceivable that some of them may be of much later date. But
where they lie above the highest platforms of Carboniferous lavas and
tuffs, they may be assigned to a younger volcanic period. We know as
yet of only two such periods after the deposition of the Carboniferous
Limestone series in Scotland--Permian and older Tertiary. Unless,
therefore, these higher sills formed part of some other display
of subterranean activity which is not known to have culminated in
eruptions at the surface, they must be looked upon as probably either
Permian or Tertiary.
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