Geochemical data are presented for five large Palaeogene dykes, members of the Mull swarm in southern Scotland and northern England (the Moneyacres, Hawick-Acklington, Barrmill, Muirkirk- Hartfell and Dalraith-Linburn dykes). The rock types range from basalt through andesite to dacite, although the range in individual intrusions is more restricted. The dykes are divisible into two groups; those where the compositional variation was generated by fractional crystallization of basaltic magmas, and those where it resulted from variable degrees of mixing of basaltic and silicic magmas. Several dykes are composite; the marginal facies can be more or less evolved than the central facies. The dyke magmas are thought to have originated from stratified magma chambers beneath the Mull centre and models are presented to show how the different components were derived from the chambers. Some dykes appear to have been terminated at or near the Southern Upland Fault, perhaps as a result of the chilling of early magma pulses by water in the fault. The Palaeogene dyke swarm is considerably more complex than previously recognized and has a significant input to models of the evolution of the Mull magmatic system.

Synopsis The Bracken Bay–Straiton dyke, a member of the Palaeogene Mull dyke swarm, is one of the Solitary dykes of southern Scotland and northern England recognized by Geikie (1897). It shows a remarkable (unique?) change of strike direction, deviating from the regional NW–SE trend to propagate along the Southern Upland Fault for 16 km before apparently resuming its southeasterly course in the Southern Uplands. The dyke is a clinopyroxene–plagioclase–phyric quartz tholeiite, showing little petrographic variation along strike. However, geochemical data indicate that the dyke segment south of the Southern Upland Fault is not comagmatic with the main dyke; it is here distinguished as the Kello Water dyke. The reason for the dyke’s deviation at the fault is uncertain but may be related to a significant role for crustal heterogeneities, particularly Caledonian fractures which had earlier been utilized by the Late Carboniferous quartz dolerite dyke swarm. Supplementary material: Electron microprobe analysis data are available at http://www.geolsoc.org.uk/SUP18737 .