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A succession of radiolarian cherts with very thin volcaniclastic interbeds are folded into an anticline -syncline pair on the Bennane Lea foreshore, on the south side of Bennane Head, Ayrshire. The chert succession overlies basaltic lavas of within-plate geochemical character; the lavas, volcaniclastics and chert all form part of the Balcreuchan Group of the Ballantrae Complex. A graptolite fauna of Floian (Early Arenig, Early Ordovician) age occurs within a black siliceous mudstone within the succession. The Ballantrae Complex is an ophiolite assemblage generated within the Iapetus Ocean during the Cambrian to the Early Ordovician, and obducted onto the margin of Laurentia in the Middle Ordovician.

See Stone, P. 2014. A review of geological origins and relationships in the Ballantrae Complex, SW Scotland. Scottish Journal of Geology, 50, 1–25.

BGS photo: P219962. Reproduced by permission of the British Geological Survey (c)NERC.