XI. Reported Metamorphic Zone at Castlefern

Abstract

The contact metamorphism of the Ordovician rocks around the granites of Kirkcudbrightshire has long been well known and is distinct around each of these intrusions. South-west of Moniaive is recorded on the Geological Survey Map of Scotland, sheet 9 1874, a “zone of metamorphosed rocks” as extending on the northern side of the Castlefern Water from a little west of Castlefern Farm for four miles to below Glencrosh at the foot of Kirkcudbright Hill. The trend of this zone is approximately west-south-west to east-north-east. It is parallel to the general strike of the sedimentary rocks in the district, but is transverse to the general trend of the granitic intrusions. It is referred to in the Memoir of the Geological Survey in explanation of that sheet (No. 9, 1877, p. 22) as the schistose area from Craigneston Hill eastward to Moniaive. Craigneston Hill is about a mile east of Castlefern. The granites of the western part of the Southern Uplands are arranged as a horse-shoe with the open end facing east-north-east. The northern arm includes the granites of Spango and Carsphairn; the western line consists of the granite of Loch Doon and the Merrick, and the massif from Cairnsmore of Fleet to Loch Ken; the southern arm extends from Auchencairn to Criffell. This “metamorphosed zone” near Moniaive suggested the occurrence of granite at a slight depth below the surface. Such an intrusion might be a member of this Loch Doon-Criffell chain, the plan of which it would alter from a horse-shoe This 250-word extract was created in the absence of an abstract