Red tuffs in the Palaeocene lava successions of the Inner Hebrides

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Abstract
Synopsis: Thin, sharply defined red deposits in the Palaeocene lava successions of the Inner Hebrides are interpreted as tuffs. They commonly contain plagioclase and augite, or in some instances, sanidine, aegirine-augite, amphibole, biotite and titanite; lithic fragments include basalt and, less commonly, trachyte and pumice, and even rarer glass. They contrast with the contemporaneously weathered and deeply decomposed, reddened lateritized, tops of lava flows that grade down into dark-coloured lava. The tuffs provide stratigraphical markers of at least local use and at some localities their distinctive petrography and mineralogy records magmatism not preserved in the contiguous lavas. The recognition that some of the inter-lava red beds are tuffs rather than laterites may imply a reduction in the time required for the lava successions to form.

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