Major Clues in the Tectonic History of the Malverns

Abstract

During recent work for the D'Arcy Exploration Co. the writer found it necessary to attempt to understand the structural history of the Malvern Range. The widespread conception of violent “Armorican” earth movements, almost simultaneously acting in directions at right angles to each other in a relatively small area, did not appear satisfactory. No important tectonic contribution to Malvern literature has appeared since Groom's work published in 1899 and 1900, conveniently summarized in Geology in the Field in 1910. Text books either ignore the problems completely and generalize strangely,2 or say practically nothing about them.3 To separate fact from later theory it was necessary to go back to the original surveys. As a result the writer finds himself unable to accept Groom's conclusion on the age of the movements causing the overturning, and in places imbrication, of the Silurian and Lower Old Red Sandstone rocks on the west side of the range. He is also strongly of the opinion that the evidence for the great Malvern Fault, separating the Trias from the older rocks on the east side of the range, has been much overplayed.