The New Red Sandstone of South Devonshire

Abstract

The objects of this paper are to supplement previous descriptions of the coast sections of the New Red Sandstone from Exmouth to Oddicombe, and to discuss views of the origin of the rocks as stated in the following quotation from the revised Torquay Memoir (Ussher-LIoyd, 1933, p. 105): “It is generally accepted that the lower New Red Sandstone breccias result from continental conditions, in which the extremes of temperature and recurring torrential rainfall operated on the bare slopes of a mountainous region, to produce diluvial fans, similar to those now being formed in the mountain valleys of Kashmir and Persia, The Dartmoor granite no doubt once formed an elevated dome and from this high ground, much higher and more extensive than at present, torrents flowing in a general easterly direction would produce gravelly accumulations, composed largely of the angular debris of formations then exposed. These accumulations may in part have been swept into a lake and there mixed with, or alternated with, beds of sand deposited under normal conditions; wind-borne sand may also have been blown from the desert into this lake or inland sea.” The term “diluvial fans” was introduced by Lloyd into the revised memoir, obviously without any reference to Pleistocene glacial deposits or the Deluge of Noah, as might be suspected from the use of this old word “diluvial”. “Alluvial fans” is preferred here and no evidence has been found of glacial action at any time.