The late Palaeozoic quartz-dolerites and tholeiites of Scotland

摘要: Towards the close of the Carboniferous period in Britain, igneous activity, which had been prominent from time to time throughout the system, broke out afresh in a new form affecting a large area of the country between the Moray Firth and the River Tees. This activity was entirely, hypabyssal in character, the intrusions consisting of basic dikes and sills belonging without exception to the tholeiite magma-type of Dr. W. Q. Kennedy and W. Wahl. Those in the north of England include the famous Whin Sill and have been studied in great detail, particularly by Professor A. Holmes and by Dr. J. A. Smythe. The same cannot be said of their Scottish representatives. They possess, indeed, an abundant literature and several excellent publications deal with the intrusions of limited areas, but there is no connected account of them as a whole. Many districts, in fact, appear to have escaped investigation almost completely.