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 the fourth place, the dykes for the most part are not coincident
with visible lines of fault. After the examination of hundreds of dykes
in all parts of the country, and with all the help which bare hillsides
and well-exposed coast-sections can afford, the number of instances
which have been met with where dykes have availed themselves of lines
of fault is surprisingly small. Some of these cases will be immediately
cited. To whatever cause we may ascribe the rupture of the solid crust
of the earth, which admitted the rise of molten rock to form the dykes,
there can be no doubt that it was not generally attended with that
displacement of level on one or both sides of the dislocation, which
we associate with the idea of a fault. Nowhere can this important part
of dyke-structure be more clearly illustrated than along the Cleveland
dyke, where the igneous rock rises through almost horizontal Jurassic
strata and gently inclined Coal-measures (Figs. 241, 242, 243, 244).
Besides the localities already cited, mining operations both for coal
and for the Liassic ironstone have proved over a wide area that the
dyke has not risen along a line of fault. Again, in Skye, Raasay,
Eigg, and other parts of the west coast, where Jurassic strata and
the horizontal basalts of the plateaux are plentifully cut through by
dykes, the same beds may generally be seen at the same level on either
side of them.
In the fifth place, while complete indifference to geological structure
is the general rule among the dykes, instances do occur in which the
molten material has found its way upward along old lines of rupture.
Most of such instances are to be found in districts where previously
existing faults happened to run in the same general direction as that
followed by the dykes. These lines of fracture might naturally be
re-opened by any great earth-movements acting in their direction, and
would afford ready channels for the ascent of the lava, as we have seen
to have not infrequently happened in the case of dyke-fissures, which
are shown by compound dykes to have sometimes been re-opened several
times in succession even after having been filled up with basalt. Yet
it is curious that, even when their trend would have suited the line
of the dykes, faults have not been more largely made use of for the
purpose of relief. Some of the best examples of the coincidence of
dykes with pre-existing faults in the same direction are to be found
in the Stirlingshire coal-field. The dyke that runs from Torphichen
for 23 miles to Cadder occupies a line of fault which at Slamannan has
a down-throw of more than 70 fathoms. The next dyke further south has
also risen along an east and west fault.
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