The Student's Elements of Geology Part 62

VOLCANIC ROCKS.

External Form, Structure, and Origin of Volcanic Mountains.

Cones and Craters.

Hypothesis of "Elevation Craters" considered.

Trap Rocks.

Name whence derived.

Minerals most abundant in Volcanic Rocks.

Table of the a.n.a.lysis of Minerals in the Volcanic and Hypogene Rocks.

Similar Minerals in Meteorites.

Theory of Isomorphism.

Basaltic Rocks.

Trachytic Rocks.

Special Forms of Structure.

The columnar and globular Forms.

Trap Dikes and Veins.

Alteration of Rocks by volcanic Dikes.

Conversion of Chalk into Marble.

Intrusion of Trap between Strata.

Relation of trappean Rocks to the Products of active Volcanoes.

(FIGURE 584. Section through formations from a, low, to c, high.

a. Hypogene formations, stratified and unstratified.

b. Aqueous formations.

c. Volcanic rocks.)

The aqueous or fossiliferous rocks having now been described, we have next to examine those which may be called volcanic, in the most extended sense of that term. In the diagram (Figure 584) suppose a, a to represent the crystalline formations, such as the granitic and metamorphic; b, b the fossiliferous strata; and c, c the volcanic rocks. These last are sometimes found, as was explained in the first chapter, breaking through a and b, sometimes overlying both, and occasionally alternating with the strata b, b.

EXTERNAL FORM, STRUCTURE, AND ORIGIN OF VOLCANIC MOUNTAINS.

The origin of volcanic cones with crater-shaped summits has been explained in the "Principles of Geology" (Chapters 23 to 27), where Vesuvius, Etna, Santorin, and Barren Island are described. The more ancient portions of those mountains or islands, formed long before the times of history, exhibit the same external features and internal structure which belong to most of the extinct volcanoes of still higher antiquity; and these last have evidently been due to a complicated series of operations, varied in kind according to circ.u.mstances; as, for example, whether the acc.u.mulation took place above or below the level of the sea, whether the lava issued from one or several contiguous vents, and, lastly, whether the rocks reduced to fusion in the subterranean regions happened to have contained more or less silica, potash, soda, lime, iron, and other ingredients.

We are best acquainted with the effects of eruptions above water, or those called subaerial or supramarine; yet the products even of these are arranged in so many ways that their interpretation has given rise to a variety of contradictory opinions, some of which will have to be considered in this chapter.

CONES AND CRATERS.

(FIGURE 585. Part of the chain of extinct volcanoes called the Monts Dome, Auvergne. (Scrope.))

In regions where the eruption of volcanic matter has taken place in the open air, and where the surface has never since been subjected to great aqueous denudation, cones and craters const.i.tute the most striking peculiarity of this cla.s.s of formations. Many hundreds of these cones are seen in central France, in the ancient provinces of Auvergne, Velay, and Vivarais, where they observe, for the most part, a linear arrangement, and form chains of hills. Although none of the eruptions have happened within the historical era, the streams of lava may still be traced distinctly descending from many of the craters, and following the lowest levels of the existing valleys. The origin of the cone and crater- shaped hill is well understood, the growth of many having been watched during volcanic eruptions. A chasm or fissure first opens in the earth, from which great volumes of steam are evolved. The explosions are so violent as to hurl up into the air fragments of broken stone, parts of which are shivered into minute atoms. At the same time melted stone or LAVA usually ascends through the chimney or vent by which the gases make their escape. Although extremely heavy, this lava is forced up by the expansive power of entangled gaseous fluids, chiefly steam or aqueous vapour, exactly in the same manner as water is made to boil over the edge of a vessel when steam has been generated at the bottom by heat.

Large quant.i.ties of the lava are also shot up into the air, where it separates into fragments, and acquires a spongy texture by the sudden enlargement of the included gases, and thus forms SCORIAE, other portions being reduced to an impalpable powder or dust. The showering down of the various ejected materials round the orifice of eruption gives rise to a conical mound, in which the successive envelopes of sand and scoriae form layers, dipping on all sides from a central axis. In the mean time a hollow, called a CRATER, has been kept open in the middle of the mound by the continued pa.s.sage upward of steam and other gaseous fluids. The lava sometimes flows over the edge of the crater, and thus thickens and strengthens the sides of the cone; but sometimes it breaks down the cone on one side (see Figure 585), and often it flows out from a fissure at the base of the hill, or at some distance from its base.

Some geologists had erroneously supposed, from observations made on recent cones of eruption, that lava which consolidates on steep slopes is always of a scoriaceous or vesicular structure, and never of that compact texture which we find in those rocks which are usually termed "trappean." Misled by this theory, they have gone so far as to believe that if melted matter has originally descended a slope at an angle exceeding four or five degrees, it never, on cooling, acquires a stony compact texture. Consequently, whenever they found in a volcanic mountain sheets of stony materials inclined at angles of from 5 degrees to 20 degrees or even more than 30 degrees, they thought themselves warranted in a.s.suming that such rocks had been originally horizontal, or very slightly inclined, and had acquired their high inclination by subsequent upheaval. To such dome-shaped mountains with a cavity in the middle, and with the inclined beds having what was called a quaquaversal dip or a slope outward on all sides, they gave the name of "Elevation craters."

As the late Leopold Von Buch, the author of this theory, had selected the Isle of Palma, one of the Canaries, as a typical ill.u.s.tration of this form of volcanic mountain, I visited that island in 1854, in company with my friend Mr.

Hartung, and I satisfied myself that it owes its origin to a series of eruptions of the same nature as those which formed the minor cones, already alluded to. In some of the more ancient or Miocene volcanic mountains, such as Mont Dor and Cantal in central France, the mode of origin by upheaval as above described is attributed to those dome-shaped ma.s.ses, whether they possess or not a great central cavity, as in Palma. Where this cavity is present, it has probably been due to one or more great explosions similar to that which destroyed a great part of ancient Vesuvius in the time of Pliny. Similar paroxysmal catastrophes have caused in historical times the truncation on a grand scale of some large cones in Java and elsewhere. (Principles volume 2 pages 56 and 145.)

Among the objections which may be considered as fatal to Von Buch's doctrine of upheaval in these cases, I may state that a series of volcanic formations extending over an area six or seven miles in its shortest diameter, as in Palma, could not be acc.u.mulated in the form of lavas, tuffs, and volcanic breccias or agglomerates without producing a mountain as lofty as that which they now const.i.tute. But a.s.suming that they were first horizontal, and then lifted up by a force acting most powerfully in the centre and tilting the beds on all sides, a central crater having been formed by explosion or by a chasm opening in the middle, where the continuity of the rocks was interrupted, we should have a right to expect that the chief ravines or valleys would open towards the central cavity, instead of which the rim of the great crater in Palma and other similar ancient volcanoes is entire for more than three parts of the whole circ.u.mference.

If dikes are seen in the precipices surrounding such craters or central cavities, they certainly imply rents which were filled up with liquid matter.

But none of the dislocations producing such rents can have belonged to the supposed period of terminal and paroxysmal upheaval, for had a great central crater been already formed before they originated, or at the time when they took place, the melted matter, instead of filling the narrow vents, would have flowed down into the bottom of the cavity, and would have obliterated it to a certain extent. Making due allowance for the quant.i.ty of matter removed by subaerial denudation in volcanic mountains of high antiquity, and for the grand explosions which are known to have caused truncation in active volcanoes, there is no reason for calling in the violent hypothesis of elevation craters to explain the structure of such mountains as Teneriffe, the Grand Canary, Palma, or those of central France, Etna, or Vesuvius, all of which I have examined. With regard to Etna, I have shown, from observations made by me in 1857, that modern lavas, several of them of known date, have formed continuous beds of compact stone even on slopes of 15, 36, and 38 degrees, and, in the case of the lava of 1852, more than 40 degrees. The thickness of these tabular layers varies from 1 1/2 foot to 26 feet. And their planes of stratification are parallel to those of the overlying and underlying scoriae which form part of the same currents. (Memoir on Mount Etna Philosophical Transactions 1858.)

NOMENCLATURE OF TRAPPEAN ROCKS.

When geologists first began to examine attentively the structure of the northern and western parts of Europe, they were almost entirely ignorant of the phenomena of existing volcanoes. They found certain rocks, for the most part without stratification, and of a peculiar mineral composition, to which they gave different names, such as basalt, greenstone, porphyry, trap tuff, and amygdaloid. All these, which were recognised as belonging to one family, were called "trap" by Bergmann, from trappa, Swedish for a flight of steps-- a name since adopted very generally into the nomenclature of the science; for it was observed that many rocks of this cla.s.s occurred in great tabular ma.s.ses of unequal extent, so as to form a succession of terraces or steps. It was also felt that some general term was indispensable, because these rocks, although very diversified in form and composition, evidently belonged to one group, distinguishable from the Plutonic as well as from the non-volcanic fossiliferous rocks.

By degrees familiarity with the products of active volcanoes convinced geologists more and more that they were identical with the trappean rocks. In every stream of modern lava there is some variation in character and composition, and even where no important difference can be recognised in the proportions of silica, alumina, lime, potash, iron, and other elementary materials, the resulting materials are often not the same, for reasons which we are as yet unable to explain. The difference also of the lavas poured out from the same mountain at two distinct periods, especially in the quant.i.ty of silica which they contain, is often so great as to give rise to rocks which are regarded as forming distinct families, although there may be every intermediate gradation between the two extremes, and although some rocks, forming a transition from the one cla.s.s to the other, may often be so abundant as to demand special names. These species might be multiplied indefinitely, and I can only afford s.p.a.ce to name a few of the princ.i.p.al ones, about the composition and aspect of which there is the least discordance of opinion.

MINERALS MOST ABUNDANT IN VOLCANIC ROCKS.

TABLE 28.1. a.n.a.lYSIS OF MINERALS MOST ABUNDANT IN THE VOLCANIC AND HYPOGENE ROCKS.

COLUMN 1: SILICA.

COLUMN 2: ALUMINA.

COLUMN 3: SESQUIOXIDE OF IRON.

COLUMN 4: PROTOXIDES OF IRON AND MANGANESE.

COLUMN 5: LIME.

COLUMN 6: MAGNESIA.

COLUMN 7: POTASH.

COLUMN 8: SODA.

COLUMN 9: OTHER CONSt.i.tUENTS.

In this column the following signs are used: F. Fluorine; Li. Lithia; W. Loss on igniting the mineral, in most instances only Water.

COLUMN 10: SPECIFIC GRAVITY.

THE QUARTZ GROUP:

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10.

Quartz: 100.0 2.6.

Tridymite: 100.0 2.3.

THE FELDSPAR GROUP:

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10.

Orthoclase. Carlsbad, in granite (Bulk):

65.23 18.26 0.27 .... trace .... 14.66 1.45 .... 2.55.