112 
BAVARIAN BASALTS 
BASALTIC ROCKS OF NORTHERN BAVARIA 
By Fro^. Sti:phen Richarz 
New York City 
Although Die Basalte der Oherpfalz ^ was primarily an intensive 
research on local topics there were certain features brought out 
that are of general interest and wide application. Moreover some 
of the results of broad significance have particular bearing upon 
some of the basalt fields of western America, and especially those 
varied occurrences in New Mexico and Arizona. The latter are 
very greatly neglected, and it is with the hope that special investi¬ 
gations on them will be stimulated that the following notes are 
offered. 
All of the basaltic rocks of northern Bavaria, south of the 
Fichtelgebirge, are basalts in the restricted sense of the term, as 
the late Professor Weinschenk, my teacher, defines them in his 
“Specielle Gesteinskunde.” They are effusive masses, lava flows 
accompanied by tuffs, of Mid Tertic age. 
As to the form of eruption there are in the Oberpfalz, numerous 
orifices from which the lavas were extravasated. These vents 
present the characteristics of being small and quite independent 
of one another^ except in those cases when the out-wellings are 
situated in a straight line. 
Sometimes the eruptives form dikes in the basaltic tuffs or in 
the older stratified rocks. Often on a single dike several eruptive 
centers occur, the materials of which are nearly or quite alike. 
Only in one place does the basalt out-welling still preserve very 
plainly the circular form of a crater. This crater has a diameter 
of about 200 feet and has vertical walls. The contact walls of 
sandstones and shales of Triassic age are still horizontally dis¬ 
posed and quite undisturbed, even to the very edge of the lava. 
1 Zeitsch. d. deut, geol. Gesellsch., LXXII Bd., pp. 1-100, 1920. 
