Summary: Contact metamorphic and metasomatic effects are described in the black radiolarian cherts of Lower Carboniferous age occurring at varying distances from the margin of the Dartmoor granite in the neighbourhood of Meldon, near Okehampton, Devon.

Development of biotite by contact metamorphism is over-printed by metasomatic conversion of chert to coarse-grained calc-silicate hornfels. Changes are localized and controlled by structural planes including faults and joints. Earliest effects are scapolitization giving black-and-white calc-flinta by local addition of calcium and subtraction of silicon. The same trend in transfer of elements is maintained in later phases: wollastonite-diopside reaction zones may enclose cores of black-and-white cale-flinta and are in turn replaced by wollastonite-grossular and grossular reaction zones marking the sites of main channels for migration of mineralizing fluids. Finally, veins with datolite-diopside, datolite-grossular-idocrase, and datolite-grossular-zeolite assemblages were formed in the altered cherts. Tin was available with aluminium and ferric iron during metasomatic changes in which garnet developed.

Some chemical transfer may be reciprocal changes with interbedded limestones, but appeal is made to external sources for the later metasomatizing agents.