Three huge chunks of banded rhyolite have been used on the Parrog in Newport as a memorial for Brian Watts, who died in 2005. They are pretty spectacular -- the larger of the three probably weighs ten tonnes. I don't think they are glacial erratics -- from their sharp edges, I think they have been quarried from a rock outcrop somewhere in the neighbourhood. There are a number of rhyolite outcrops on the northern flank of Carningli. I am trying to discover the provenance........
Text-book examples of contorted flow banding, created by flowing lava and picked out by layers of quartz (?) crystals...... Click to enlarge.
PS. The provenance will remain a mystery. Apparently Glyn Rees, the landlord of the Golden Lion in Newport, "obtained" it from a secret location in the year 2000, as a Millennium commemoration stone, and never divulged where it came from. So the secret went to the grave with him when he died.......
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