Fig. 40.—Map of the volcanic district of St. David's.
The volcanic geology of St. David's possesses a special interest inasmuch as it embraces a tolerably full development of various features which characterize the volcanic groups of later Palæozoic systems. Though the rocks are chiefly tuffs, they include also sheets of lava, as well as sills, dykes and bosses. They show a remarkable range in chemical composition from quite basic to highly acid materials. They present the amplest proofs of having been erupted and spread out over the sea-bottom, and they likewise afford clear evidence of alternation with the ordinary non-volcanic sediment of the time to which they belong. In these respects they are particularly noteworthy, for they prove that in the earliest Palæozoic ages the essential features of volcanic action were already as well developed as in any subsequent epoch of geological history.
The volcanic group of St. David's attains a visible thickness of about 1800 feet. Its upper part graduates upward into purple and green Lower Cambrian sandstones. The base of the group is not seen owing to the plicated structure of the district. Hence the total thickness of volcanic material cannot be determined, neither can we tell on what it rests, whether on a still lower sedimentary series or on some platform of pre-Cambrian rocks.
The structure of the group, notwithstanding all that has been written about it, has never yet been adequately worked out. The unfortunate and barren controversy about supposed pre-Cambrian rocks at St. David's has tended to obscure the real importance of these rocks as the oldest well-preserved record of volcanic action in Britain. They deserve to be carefully surveyed on maps of a large scale, in the same detailed manner as has been so successfully applied to the elucidation of younger volcanic tracts. Until such detailed investigation is made, any account of them which is given can be little more than a general outline of the subject. The following description is the result of my examination of the ground in company with my colleague Mr. B. N. Peach, and afterwards with the late Mr. W. Topley.[86] A few additional observations, from the subsequent exploration of Professor Lloyd Morgan,[87] are incorporated in the narrative.
[86] Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. vol. xxxix. (1883), p. 294 et seq. While the essential parts of the investigation are given in the following pages, I would refer the reader to this paper for details not transferred to the present volume.
[87] Op. cit. vol. xlvi. (1890), p. 241.
The geologist who traces these St. David's rocks in the field cannot fail to be struck with their general resemblance to volcanic masses of later Palæozoic date. Many of the lavas and tuffs are in outward characters quite indistinguishable from those of the Lower Old Red Sandstone and Carboniferous systems of Britain. So many points of detail may be observed to be common to the Palæozoic eruptive rocks all over the country from the Cambrian to the Permian periods as to indicate that volcanic phenomena must have recurred under much the same conditions throughout Palæozoic time.
By far the larger part of the Cambrian volcanic group of St. David's consists of bedded tuffs, though a few lavas are interstratified in it, particularly towards the top. The whole has subsequently been invaded by acid protrusions, and lastly by basic dykes.
1. Bedded Tuffs and Lavas.—The tuffs, which are the predominant members of the volcanic group, present many varieties of colour, from dark purple, through tints of brick-red and lilac, to pale pink, yellow and creamy white, but not unfrequently assume various shades of dull green. They vary likewise in texture from somewhat coarse breccias or agglomerates, through many gradations, into fine silky schists in which the tuffaceous character is almost lost. Generally they are distinctly granular, presenting to the naked eye abundant angular and subangular lapilli, among which broken crystals of a white, somewhat kaolinized, felspar and fragments of fine-grained felsite are often conspicuous. The greater part of the tuffs, particularly the purple, red and dark-green varieties, which constitute so large a proportion of the whole, has been derived from the explosion of basic rocks similar in character to the diabases now found associated with them. On the other hand, the paler varieties, both in the form of fine tuffs and of breccias, have probably resulted mainly from the destruction of more siliceous lavas, probably felsites (rhyolites) or other acid rocks.
That many of the tuffs are due to the destruction of diabase-lavas may be surmised from their close general external resemblance to these rocks, and from the way in which they are associated with the contemporaneous sheets of diabase. Some of the dull dark-purple tuffs might almost at first sight be mistaken for truly eruptive rocks. The analyses of two typical examples of these basic tuffs (Nos. I. and II.), and one (No. III.) of an intermediate variety containing an admixture of acid fragments, are given in the subjoined table.