The Student's Elements of Geology Part 74

In the Swiss and Savoy Alps, as Mr. Bakewell has remarked, enormous ma.s.ses of limestone are cut through so regularly by nearly vertical partings, and these joints are often so much more conspicuous than the seams of stratification, that an inexperienced observer will almost inevitably confound them, and suppose the strata to be perpendicular in places where in fact they are almost horizontal.

(Introduction to Geology chapter 4.)

Now such joints are supposed to be a.n.a.logous to the partings which separate volcanic and Plutonic rocks into cuboidal and prismatic ma.s.ses. On a small scale we see clay and starch when dry split into similar shapes; this is often caused by simple contraction, whether the shrinking be due to the evaporation of water, or to a change of temperature. It is well known that many sandstones and other rocks expand by the application of moderate degrees of heat, and then contract again on cooling; and there can be no doubt that large portions of the earth's crust have, in the course of past ages, been subjected again and again to very different degrees of heat and cold. These alternations of temperature have probably contributed largely to the production of joints in rocks.

In many countries where ma.s.ses of basalt rest on sandstone, the aqueous rock has, for the distance of several feet from the point of junction, a.s.sumed a columnar structure similar to that of the trap. In like manner some hearth- stones, after exposure to the heat of a furnace without being melted, have become prismatic. Certain crystals also acquire by the application of heat a new internal arrangement, so as to break in a new direction, their external form remaining unaltered.

CRYSTALLINE THEORY OF CLEAVAGE.

Professor Sedgwick, speaking of the planes of slaty cleavage, where they are decidedly distinct from those of sedimentary deposition, declared, in the essay before alluded to, his opinion that no retreat of parts, no contraction in the dimensions of rocks in pa.s.sing to a solid state, can account for the phenomenon.

He accordingly referred it to crystalline or polar forces acting simultaneously, and somewhat uniformly, in given directions, on large ma.s.ses having a h.o.m.ogeneous composition.

Sir John Herschel, in allusion to slaty cleavage, has suggested that "if rocks have been so heated as to allow a commencement of crystallisation-- that is to say, if they have been heated to a point at which the particles can begin to move among themselves, or at least on their own axes, some general law must then determine the position in which these particles will rest on cooling. Probably, that position will have some relation to the direction in which the heat escapes. Now, when all, or a majority of particles of the same nature have a general tendency to one position, that must of course determine a cleavage- plane. Thus we see the infinitesimal crystals of fresh-precipitated sulphate of barytes, and some other such bodies, arrange themselves alike in the fluid in which they float; so as, when stirred, all to glance with one light, and give the appearance of silky filaments. Some sorts of soap, in which insoluble margarates exist (Margaric acid is an oleaginous acid, formed from different animal and vegetable fatty substances. A margarate is a compound of this acid with soda, potash, or some other base, and is so named from its pearly l.u.s.tre.), exhibit the same phenomenon when mixed with water; and what occurs in our experiments on a minute scale may occur in nature on a great one." (Letter to the author dated Cape of Good Hope February 20, 1836.)

MECHANICAL THEORY OF CLEAVAGE.

Professor Phillips has remarked that in some slaty rocks the form of the outline of fossil sh.e.l.ls and trilobites has been much changed by distortion, which has taken place in a longitudinal, transverse, or oblique direction. This change, he adds, seems to be the result of a "creeping movement" of the particles of the rock along the planes of cleavage, its direction being always uniform over the same tract of country, and its amount in s.p.a.ce being sometimes measurable, and being as much as a quarter or even half an inch. The hard sh.e.l.ls are not affected, but only those which are thin. (Report British a.s.sociation Cork 1843 Section page 60.) Mr. D. Sharpe, following up the same line of inquiry, came to the conclusion that the present distorted forms of the sh.e.l.ls in certain British slate rocks may be accounted for by supposing that the rocks in which they are imbedded have undergone compression in a direction perpendicular to the planes of cleavage, and a corresponding expansion in the direction of the dip of the cleavage. (Quarterly Geological Journal volume 3 page 87 1847.)

(FIGURE 627. Vertical section of slate rock in the cliffs near Ilfracombe, North Devon. Scale one inch to one foot. (Drawn by H.C. Sorby.) a, b, c, e. Fine-grained slates, the stratification being shown partly by lighter or darker colours, and partly by different degrees of fineness in the grain.

d, f. A coa.r.s.er grained light-coloured sandy slate with less perfect cleavage.)

Subsequently (1853) Mr. Sorby demonstrated the great extent to which this mechanical theory is applicable to the slate rocks of North Wales and Devonshire (On the Origin of Slaty Cleavage by H.C. Sorby Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal 1853 volume 55 page 137.), districts where the amount of change in dimensions can be tested and measured by comparing the different effects exerted by lateral pressure on alternating beds of finer and coa.r.s.er materials. Thus, for example, in Figure 627 it will be seen that the sandy bed d-f, which has offered greater resistance, has been sharply contorted, while the fine-grained strata, a, b, c, have remained comparatively unbent. The points d and f in the stratum d-f must have been originally four times as far apart as they are now.

They have been forced so much nearer to each other, partly by bending, and partly by becoming elongated in the direction of what may be called the longer axes of their contortions, and lastly, to a certain small amount, by condensation. The chief result has obviously been due to the bending; but, in proof of elongation, it will be observed that the thickness of the bed d-f is now about four times greater in those parts lying in the main direction of the flexures than in a plane perpendicular to them; and the same bed exhibits cleavage planes in the direction of the greatest movement, although they are much fewer than in the slaty strata above and below.

Above the sandy bed d-f, the stratum c is somewhat disturbed, while the next bed, b, is much less so, and a not at all; yet all these beds, c, b, and a, must have undergone an equal amount of pressure with d, the points a and g having approximated as much towards each other as have d and f. The same phenomena are also repeated in the beds below d, and might have been shown, had the section been extended downward. Hence it appears that the finer beds have been squeezed into a fourth of the s.p.a.ce they previously occupied, partly by condensation, or the closer packing of their ultimate particles (which has given rise to the great specific gravity of such slates), and partly by elongation in the line of the dip of the cleavage, of which the general direction is perpendicular to that of the pressure. "These and numerous other cases in North Devon are a.n.a.logous,"

says Mr. Sorby, "to what would occur if a strip of paper were included in a ma.s.s of some soft plastic material which would readily change its dimensions. If the whole were then compressed in the direction of the length of the strip of paper, it would be bent and puckered up into contortions, while the plastic material would readily change its dimensions without undergoing such contortions; and the difference in distance of the ends of the paper, as measured in a direct line or along it, would indicate the change in the dimensions of the plastic material."

By microscopic examination of minute crystals, and by other observations, Mr.

Sorby has come to the conclusion that the absolute condensation of the slate rocks amounts upon an average to about one half their original volume. Most of the scales of mica occurring in certain slates examined by Mr. Sorby lie in the plane of cleavage; whereas in a similar rock not exhibiting cleavage they lie with their longer axes in all directions. May not their position in the slates have been determined by the movement of elongation before alluded to? To ill.u.s.trate this theory some scales of oxide of iron were mixed with soft pipe- clay in such a manner that they inclined in all directions. The dimensions of the ma.s.s were then changed artificially to a similar extent to what has occurred in slate rocks, and the pipe-clay was then dried and baked. When it was afterwards rubbed to a flat surface perpendicular to the pressure and in the line of elongation, or in a plane corresponding to that of the dip of cleavage, the particles were found to have become arranged in the same manner as in natural slates, and the ma.s.s admitted of easy fracture into thin flat pieces in the plane alluded to, whereas it would not yield in that perpendicular to the cleavage. (Sorby as cited above page 741 note.)

Dr. Tyndall, when commenting in 1856 on Mr. Sorby's experiments, observed that pressure alone is sufficient to produce cleavage, and that the intervention of plates of mica or scales of oxide of iron, or any other substances having flat surfaces, is quite unnecessary. In proof of this he showed experimentally that a ma.s.s of "pure white wax, after having been submitted to great pressure, exhibited a cleavage more clean than that of any slate-rock, splitting into laminae of surpa.s.sing tenuity." (Tyndall View of the Cleavage of Crystals and Slate rocks.) He remarks that every ma.s.s of clay or mud is divided and subdivided by surfaces among which the cohesion is comparatively small. On being subjected to pressure, such ma.s.ses yield and spread out in the direction of least resistance, small nodules become converted into laminae separated from each other by surfaces of weak cohesion, and the result is that the ma.s.s cleaves at right angles to the line in which the pressure is exerted. In further ill.u.s.tration of this, Mr. Hughes remarks that "concretions which in the undisturbed beds have their longer axes parallel to the bedding are, where the rock is much cleaved, frequently found flattened laterally, so as to have their longer axes parallel to the cleavage planes, and at a considerable angle, even right angles, to their former position."

Mr. Darwin attributes the lamination and fissile structure of volcanic rocks of the trachytic series, including some obsidians in Ascension, Mexico, and elsewhere, to their having moved when liquid in the direction of the laminae.

The zones consist sometimes of layers of air-cells drawn out and lengthened in the supposed direction of the moving ma.s.s. (Darwin Volcanic Islands pages 69, 70.)

FOLIATION OF CRYSTALLINE SCHISTS.

After studying, in 1835, the crystalline rocks of South America, Mr. Darwin proposed the term FOLIATION for the laminae or plates into which gneiss, mica- schist, and other crystalline rocks are divided. Cleavage, he observes, may be applied to those divisional planes which render a rock fissile, although it may appear to the eye quite or nearly h.o.m.ogeneous. Foliation may be used for those alternating layers or plates of different mineralogical nature of which gneiss and other metamorphic schists are composed.

That the planes of foliation of the crystalline schists in Norway accord very generally with those of original stratification is a conclusion long since espoused by Keilhau. (Norske Mag. Naturvidsk. volume 1 page 71.) Numerous observations made by Mr. David Forbes in the same country (the best probably in Europe for studying such phenomena on a grand scale) confirm Keilhau's opinion.

In Scotland, also, Mr. D. Forbes has pointed out a striking case where the foliation is identical with the lines of stratification in rocks well seen near Crianlorich on the road to Tyndrum, about eight miles from Inverarnon, in Perthshire. There is in that locality a blue limestone foliated by the intercalation of small plates of white mica, so that the rock is often scarcely distinguishable in aspect from gneiss or mica-schist. The stratification is shown by the large beds and coloured bands of limestone all dipping, like the folia, at an angle of 32 degrees N.E. (Memoir read before the Geological Society London January 31, 1855.) In stratified formations of every age we see layers of siliceous sand with or without mica, alternating with clay, with fragments of sh.e.l.ls or corals, or with seams of vegetable matter, and we should expect the mutual attraction of like particles to favour the crystallisation of the quartz, or mica, or feldspar, or carbonate of lime, along the planes of original deposition, rather than in planes placed at angles of 20 or 40 degrees to those of stratification.

We have seen how much the original planes of stratification may be interfered with or even obliterated by concretionary action in deposits still retaining their fossils, as in the case of the magnesian limestone (see Chapter 4). Hence we must expect to be frequently baffled when we attempt to decide whether the foliation does or does not accord with that arrangement which gravitation, combined with current-action, imparted to a deposit from water. Moreover, when we look for stratification in crystalline rocks, we must be on our guard not to expect too much regularity. The occurrence of wedge-shaped ma.s.ses, such as belong to coa.r.s.e sand and pebbles-- diagonal lamination (Chapter 2)-- ripple- marked, unconformable stratification,-- the fantastic folds produced by lateral pressure-- faults of various width-- intrusive dikes of trap-- organic bodies of diversified shapes, and other causes of unevenness in the planes of deposition, both on the small and on the large scale, will interfere with parallelism. If complex and enigmatical appearances did not present themselves, it would be a serious objection to the metamorphic theory. Mr. Sorby has shown that the peculiar structure belonging to ripple-marked sands, or that which is generated when ripples are formed during the deposition of the materials, is distinctly recognisable in many varieties of mica-schists in Scotland. (H.C. Sorby Quarterly Geological Journal volume 19 page 401.)

(FIGURE 628. Lamination of clay-stone. Montagne de Seguinat, near Gavarnie, in the Pyrenees.)

In Figure 628 I have represented carefully the lamination of a coa.r.s.e argillaceous schist which I examined in 1830 in the Pyrenees. In part it approaches in character to a green and blue roofing-slate, while part is extremely quartzose, the whole ma.s.s pa.s.sing downward into micaceous schist. The vertical section here exhibited is about three feet in height, and the layers are sometimes so thin that fifty may be counted in the thickness of an inch.

Some of them consist of pure quartz. There is a resemblance in such cases to the diagonal lamination which we see in sedimentary rocks, even though the layers of quartz and of mica, or of feldspar and other minerals, may be more distinct in alternating folia than they were originally.

CHAPTER x.x.xV.

ON THE DIFFERENT AGES OF THE METAMORPHIC ROCKS.

Difficulty of ascertaining the Age of metamorphic Strata.

Metamorphic Strata of Eocene date in the Alps of Switzerland and Savoy.

Limestone and Shale of Carrara.

Metamorphic Strata of older date than the Silurian and Cambrian Rocks.

Order of Succession in metamorphic Rocks.

Uniformity of mineral Character.

Supposed Azoic Period.

Connection between the Absence of Organic Remains and the Scarcity of calcareous Matter in metamorphic Rocks.

According to the theory adopted in the last chapter, the metamorphic strata have been deposited at one period, and have become crystalline at another. We can rarely hope to define with exactness the date of both these periods, the fossils having been destroyed by Plutonic action, and the mineral characters being the same, whatever the age. Superposition itself is an ambiguous test, especially when we desire to determine the period of crystallisation. Suppose, for example, we are convinced that certain metamorphic strata in the Alps, which are covered by cretaceous beds, are altered lias; this lias may have a.s.sumed its crystalline texture in the cretaceous or in some tertiary period, the Eocene for example.

When discussing the ages of the Plutonic rocks, we have seen that examples occur of various primary, secondary, and tertiary deposits converted into metamorphic strata near their contact with granite. There can be no doubt in these cases that strata once composed of mud, sand, and gravel, or of clay, marl, and sh.e.l.ly limestone, have for the distance of several yards, and in some instances several hundred feet, been turned into gneiss, mica-schist, hornblende-schist, chlorite- schist, quartz rock, statuary marble, and the rest. (See Chapters 33 and 34.) It may be easy to prove the ident.i.ty of two different parts of the same stratum; one, where the rock has been in contact with a volcanic or Plutonic ma.s.s, and has been changed into marble or hornblende-schist, and another not far distant, where the same bed remains unaltered and fossiliferous; but when hydrothermal action, as described in Chapter 33, has operated gradually on a more extensive scale, it may have finally destroyed all monuments of the date of its development throughout a whole mountain chain, and all the labour and skill of the most practised observers are required, and may sometimes be at fault. I shall mention one or two examples of alteration on a grand scale, in order to explain to the student the kind of reasoning by which we are led to infer that dense ma.s.ses of fossiliferous strata have been converted into crystalline rocks.

EOCENE STRATA RENDERED METAMORPHIC IN THE ALPS.

In the eastern part of the Alps, some of the Palaeozoic strata, as well as the older Mesozoic formations, including the oolitic and cretaceous rocks, are distinctly recognisable. Tertiary deposits also appear in a less elevated position on the flanks of the Eastern Alps; but in the Central or Swiss Alps, the Palaeozoic and older Mesozoic formations disappear, and the Cretaceous, Oolitic, Lia.s.sic, and at some points even the Eocene strata, graduate insensibly into metamorphic rocks, consisting of granular limestone, talc-schist, talcose- gneiss, micaceous schist, and other varieties.

As an ill.u.s.tration of the partial conversion into gneiss of portions of a highly inclined set of beds, I may cite Sir R. Murchison's memoir on the structure of the Alps. Slates provincially termed "flysch" (see Chapter 16), overlying the nummulite limestone of Eocene date, and comprising some arenaceous and some calcareous layers, are seen to alternate several times with bands of granitoid rock, answering in character to gneiss. In this case heat, vapour, or water at a high temperature may have traversed the more permeable beds, and altered them so far as to admit of an internal movement and re-arrangement of the molecules, while the adjoining strata did not give pa.s.sage to the same heated gases or water, or, if so, remained unchanged because they were composed of less fusible or decomposable materials. Whatever hypothesis we adopt, the phenomena establish beyond a doubt the possibility of the development of the metamorphic structure in a tertiary deposit in planes parallel to those of stratification. The strata appear clearly to have been affected, though in a less intense degree, by that same Plutonic action which has entirely altered and rendered metamorphic so many of the subjacent formations; for in the Alps this action has by no means been confined to the immediate vicinity of granite. Granite, indeed, and other Plutonic rocks, rarely make their appearance at the surface, notwithstanding the deep ravines which lay open to view the internal structure of these mountains.

That they exist below at no great depth we can not doubt, for at some points, as in the Valorsine, near Mont Blanc, granite and granitic veins are observable, piercing through talcose gneiss, which pa.s.ses insensibly upward into secondary strata.

It is certainly in the Alps of Switzerland and Savoy, more than in any other district in Europe, that the geologist is prepared to meet with the signs of an intense development of Plutonic action; for here strata thousands of feet thick have been bent, folded, and overturned, and marine secondary formations of a comparatively modern date, such as the Oolitic and Cretaceous, have been upheaved to the height of 12,000, and some Eocene strata to elevations of 10,000 feet above the level of the sea; and even deposits of the Miocene era have been raised 4000 or 5000 feet, so as to rival in height the loftiest mountains in Great Britain. In one of the sections described by M. Studer in the highest of the Bernese Alps, namely in the Roththal, a valley bordering the line of perpetual snow on the northern side of the Jungfrau, there occurs a ma.s.s of gneiss 1000 feet thick, and 15,000 feet long, which I examined, not only resting upon, but also again covered by strata containing oolitic fossils. These anomalous appearances may partly be explained by supposing great solid wedges of intrusive gneiss to have been forced in laterally between strata to which I found them to be in many sections unconformable. The superposition, also, of the gneiss to the oolite may, in some cases, be due to a reversal of the original position of the beds in a region where the convulsions have been on so stupendous a scale.

NORTHERN APENNINES.-- CARRARA.

The celebrated marble of Carrara, used in sculpture, was once regarded as a type of primitive limestone. It abounds in the mountains of Ma.s.sa Carrara, or the "Apuan Alps," as they have been called, the highest peaks of which are nearly 6000 feet high. Its great antiquity was inferred from its mineral texture, from the absence of fossils, and its pa.s.sage downward into talc-schist and garnetiferous mica-schist; these rocks again graduating downward into gneiss, which is penetrated, at Forno, by granite veins. But the researches of MM. Savi, Boue, Pareto, Guidoni, De la Beche, Hoffman, and Pilla demonstrated that this marble, once supposed to be formed before the existence of organic beings, is, in fact, an altered limestone of the Oolitic period, and the underlying crystalline schists are secondary sandstones and shales, modified by Plutonic action. In order to establish these conclusions it was first pointed out that the calcareous rocks bordering the Gulf of Spezia, and abounding in Oolitic fossils, a.s.sume a texture like that of Carrara marble, in proportion as they are more and more invaded by certain trappean and Plutonic rocks, such as diorite, serpentine, and granite, occurring in the same country.

It was then observed that, in places where the secondary formations are unaltered, the uppermost consist of common Apennine limestone with nodules of flint, below which are shales, and at the base of all, argillaceous and siliceous sandstones. In the limestone fossils are frequent, but very rare in the underlying shale and sandstone. Then a gradation was traced laterally from these rocks into another and corresponding series, which is completely metamorphic; for at the top of this we find a white granular marble, wholly devoid of fossils, and almost without stratification, in which there are no nodules of flint, but in its place siliceous matter disseminated through the ma.s.s in the form of prisms of quartz. Below this, and in place of the shales, are talc-schists, jasper, and hornstone; and at the bottom, instead of the siliceous and argillaceous sandstones, are quartzite and gneiss. (See notices of Savi, Hoffman, and others, referred to by Boue, Bull. de la Soc. Geol. de France tome 5 page 317 and tome 3 page 44; also Pilla, cited by Murchison Quarterly Geological Journal volume 5 page 266.) Had these secondary strata of the Apennines undergone universally as great an amount of trans.m.u.tation, it would have been impossible to form a conjecture respecting their true age; and then, according to the method of cla.s.sification adopted by the earlier geologists, they would have ranked as primary rocks. In that case the date of their origin would have been thrown back to an era antecedent to the deposition of the Lower Silurian or Cambrian strata, although in reality they were formed in the Oolitic period, and altered at some subsequent and perhaps much later epoch.

METAMORPHIC STRATA OF OLDER DATE THAN THE SILURIAN AND CAMBRIAN ROCKS.

It was remarked (Figure 617) that as the hypogene rocks, both stratified and unstratified, crystallise originally at a certain depth beneath the surface, they must always, before they are upraised and exposed at the surface, be of considerable antiquity, relatively to a large portion of the fossiliferous and volcanic rocks. They may be forming at all periods; but before any of them can become visible, they must be raised above the level of the sea, and some of the rocks which previously concealed them must have been removed by denudation.

In Canada, as we have seen (Chapter 27), the Lower Laurentian gneiss, quartzite, and limestone may be regarded as metamorphic, because, among other reasons, organic remains (Eozoon Canadense) have been detected in a part of one of the calcareous ma.s.ses. The Upper Laurentian or Labrador series lies unconformably upon the Lower, and differs from it chiefly in having as yet yielded no fossils.

It consists of gneiss with Labrador-feldspar and feldstones, in all 10,000 feet thick, and both its composition and structure lead us to suppose that, like the Lower Laurentian, it was originally of sedimentary origin and owes its crystalline condition to metamorphic action. The remote date of the period when some of these old Laurentian strata of Canada were converted into gneiss may be inferred from the fact that pebbles of that rock are found in the overlying Huronian formation, which is probably of Cambrian age (Chapter 27).

The oldest stratified rock of Scotland is the hornblendic gneiss of Lewis, in the Hebrides, and that of the north-west coast of Ross-shire, represented at the base of the section given at Figure 82. It is the same as that intersected by numerous granite veins which forms the cliffs of Cape Wrath, in Sutherlandshire (see Figure 613), and is conjectured to be of Laurentian age. Above it, as shown in the section (Figure 82), lie unconformable beds of a reddish or purple sandstone and conglomerate, nearly horizontal, and between 3000 and 4000 feet thick. In these ancient grits no fossils have been found, but they are supposed to be of Cambrian date, for Sir R. Murchison found Lower Silurian strata resting unconformably upon them. These strata consist of quartzite with annelid burrows already alluded to (Chapter 7), and limestone in which Mr. Charles Peach was the first to find, in 1854, three or four species of Orthoceras, also the genera Cyrtoceras and Lituites, two species of Murchisonia, a Pleurotomaria, a species of Maclurea, one of Euomphalus, and an Orthis. Several of the species are believed by Mr. Salter to be identical with Lower Silurian fossils of Canada and the United States.

The discovery of the true age of these fossiliferous rocks was one of the most important steps made of late years in the progress of British Geology, for it led to the unexpected conclusion that all the Scotch crystalline strata to the eastward, once called primitive, which overlie the limestone and quartzite in question, are referable to some part of the Silurian series.

These Scotch metamorphic strata are of gneiss, mica-schist, and clay-slate of vast thickness, and having a strike from north-east to south-west almost at right angles to that of the older Laurentian gneiss before mentioned. The newer crystalline series, comprising the crystalline rocks of Aberdeenshire, Perthshire, and Forfarshire, were inferred by Sir R. Murchison to be altered Silurian strata; and his opinion has been since confirmed by the observations of three able geologists, Messrs. Ramsay, Harkness, and Geikie. The newest of the series is a clay-slate, on which, along the southern borders of the Grampians, the Lower Old Red, containing Cephalaspis Lyelli, Pterygotus Anglicus, and Parka decipiens, rests unconformably.

ORDER OF SUCCESSION IN METAMORPHIC ROCKS.

There is no universal and invariable order of superposition in metamorphic rocks, although a particular arrangement may prevail throughout countries of great extent, for the same reason that it is traceable in those sedimentary formations from which crystalline strata are derived. Thus, for example, we have seen that in the Apennines, near Carrara, the descending series, where it is metamorphic, consists of, first, saccharine marble; secondly, talcose-schist; and thirdly, of quartz-rock and gneiss: where unaltered, of, first, fossiliferous limestone; secondly, shale; and thirdly, sandstone.