Synthesis of the Caledonian Rocks of Britain

Book excerpt: The Advanced Science Institute on which this publication is based took the somewhat unusual form of a geological field symposium held during late August 1984. It was designed to demonstrate to experienced earth scientists from the North Atlantic area the full range of geological phenomena encountered in the British Caledonian rocks. The ASl travelled from South Wales to the far northwest of Scotland by the route shown on the map and in doing so examined sedimentary, igneous and metamorphic rocks from Pembrokeshire (Dyfed), Cardigan (Ceridigian), Snowdonia, Anglesey, the English Lake District and the Southern Uplands and Highlands of Scotland. Thus the fifty or so participants in the ASl studied the geological history and major structures of rocks exposed on either side of the supposed Lower Palaeozoic Iapetus Ocean the British sector of which closed to the south of the present Southern Uplands. Wales (1-5) afforded insight into the nature of the late Precambrian basement of England and Wales and the relationship of sedimentary and volcanic cover sequences to this basement. The Ordovician sequence in Wales is a sample of the volcanic rocks typical of a marginal basin, and were examined in Pembrokeshire and Snowdonia. The English Lake District (6) displays rocks from an island arc also of Ordovician age.