The Elements of Geology Part 17

On the morning of the 8th of May, 1902, the first of these peculiar avalanches from Mt. Pelee fell on the city of St. Pierre and instantly destroyed the lives of its thirty thousand inhabitants.

The eruptions of many volcanoes partake of both the effusive and the explosive types: the molten rock in the pipe is in part blown into the air with explosions of steam, and in part is discharged in streams of lava over the lip of the crater and from fissures in the sides of the cone. Such are the eruptions of Vesuvius, one of which is ill.u.s.trated in Figure 219.

SUBMARINE ERUPTIONS. The many volcanic islands of the ocean and the coral islands resting on submerged volcanic peaks prove that eruptions have often taken place upon the ocean floor and have there built up enormous piles of volcanic fragments and lava. The Hawaiian volcanoes rise from a depth of eighteen thousand feet of water and lift their heads to about thirty thousand feet above the ocean bed. Christmas Island (see p. 194), built wholly beneath the ocean, is a coral-capped volcanic peak, whose total height, as measured from the bottom of the sea, is more than fifteen thousand feet. Deep-sea soundings have revealed the presence of numerous peaks which fail to reach sea level and which no doubt are submarine volcanoes. A number of volcanoes on the land were submarine in their early stages, as, for example, the vast pile of Etna, the celebrated Sicilian volcano, which rests on stratified volcanic fragments containing marine sh.e.l.ls now uplifted from the sea.

Submarine outflows of lava and deposits of volcanic fragments become covered with sediments during the long intervals between eruptions. Such volcanic deposits are said to be CONTEMPORANEOUS, because they are formed during the same period as the strata among which they are imbedded. Contemporaneous lava sheets may be expected to bake the surface of the stratum on which they rest, while the sediments deposited upon them are unaltered by their heat. They are among the most permanent records of volcanic action, far outlasting the greatest volcanic mountains built in open air.

From upraised submarine volcanoes, such as Christmas Island, it is learned that lava flows which are poured out upon the bottom of the sea do not differ materially either in composition or texture from those of the land.

VOLCANIC PRODUCTS

Vast amounts of steam are, as we have seen, emitted from volcanoes, and comparatively small quant.i.ties of other vapors, such as various acid and sulphurous gases. The rocks erupted from volcanoes differ widely in chemical composition and in texture.

ACIDIC AND BASIC LAVAS. Two cla.s.ses of volcanic rocks may be distinguished,--those containing a large proportion of silica (silicic acid, SiO2) and therefore called ACIDIC, and those containing less silica and a larger proportion of the bases (lime, magnesia, soda, etc.) and therefore called BASIC. The acidic lavas, of which RHYOLITE and THRACHYTE are examples, are comparatively light in color and weight, and are difficult to melt. The basic lavas, of which BASALT is a type, are dark and heavy and melt at a lower temperature.

SCORIA AND PUMICE. The texture of volcanic rocks depends in part on the degree to which they were distended by the steam which permeated them when in a molten state. They harden into compact rock where the steam cannot expand. Where the steam is released from pressure, as on the surface of a lava stream, it forms bubbles (steam blebs) of various sizes, which give the hardened rock a cellular structure (Fig. 220), In this way are formed the rough slags and clinkers called SCORIA, which are found on the surface of flows and which are also thrown out as clots of lava in explosive eruptions.

On the surface of the seething lava in the throat of the volcano there gathers a rock foam, which, when hurled into the air, is cooled and falls as PUMICE,--a spongy gray rock so light that it floats on water.

AMYGDULES. The steam blebs of lava flows are often drawn out from a spherical to an elliptical form resembling that of an almond, and after the rock has cooled these cavities are gradually filled with minerals deposited from solution by underground water. From their shape such casts are called amygdules (Greek, amygdalon, an almond). Amygdules are commonly composed of silica. Lavas contain both silica and the alkalies, potash and soda, and after dissolving the alkalies, percolating water is able to take silica also into solution. Most AGATES are banded amygdules in which the silica has been laid in varicolored, concentric layers.

GLa.s.sY AND STONY LAVAS. Volcanic rocks differ in texture according also to the rate at which they have solidified. When rapidly cooled, as on the surface of a lava flow, molten rock chills to a gla.s.s, because the minerals of which it is composed have not had time to separate themselves from the fused mixture and form crystals. Under slow cooling, as in the interior of the flow, it becomes a stony ma.s.s composed of crystals set in a gla.s.sy paste.

In thin slices of volcanic gla.s.s one may see under the microscope the beginnings of crystal growth in filaments and needles and feathery forms, which are the rudiments of the crystals of various minerals.

Spherulites, which also mark the first changes of gla.s.sy lavas toward a stony condition, are little b.a.l.l.s within the rock, varying from microscopic size to several inches in diameter, and made up of radiating fibers.

Perlitic structure, common among gla.s.sy lavas, consists of microscopic curving and interlacing cracks, due to contraction.

FLOW LINES are exhibited by volcanic rocks both to the naked eye and under the microscope. Steam blebs, together with crystals and their embryonic forms, are left arranged in lines and streaks by the currents of the flowing lava as it stiffened into rock.

PORPHYRITIC STRUCTURE. Rocks whose ground ma.s.s has scattered through it large conspicuous crystals are said to be PORPHYRITIC, and it is especially among volcanic rocks that this structure occurs. The ground ma.s.s of porphyries either may be gla.s.sy or may consist in part of a felt of minute crystals; in either case it represents the consolidation of the rock after its outpouring upon the surface. On the other hand, the large crystals of porphyry have slowly formed deep below the ground at an earlier date.

COLUMNAR STRUCTURE. Just as wet starch contracts on drying to prismatic forms, so lava often contracts on cooling to a ma.s.s of close-set, prismatic, and commonly six-sided columns, which stand at right angles to the cooling surface. The upper portion of a flow, on rapid cooling from the surface exposed to the air, may contract to a confused ma.s.s of small and irregular prisms; while the remainder forms large and beautifully regular columns, which have grown upward by slow cooling from beneath.

FRAGMENTAL MATERIALS

Rocks weighing many tons are often thrown from a volcano at the beginning of an outburst by the breaking up of the solidofied floor of the crater; and during the progress of an eruption large blocks may be torn from the throat of the volcano by the outrush of steam. But the most important fragmental materials are those derived from the lava itself. As lava rises in the pipe, the steam which permeates it is released from pressure and explodes, hurling the lava into the air in fragments of all sizes,--large pieces of scoria, LAPILLI (fragments the size of a pea or walnut), volcanic "sand" and volcanic "ashes." The latter resemble in appearance the ashes of wood or coal, but they are not in any sense, like them, a residue after combustion.

Volcanic ashes are produced in several ways: lava rising in the volcanic duct is exploded into fine dust by the steam which permeates it; gla.s.sy lava, hurled into the air and cooled suddenly, is brought into a state of high strain and tension, and, like Prince Rupert's drops, flies to pieces at the least provocation. The clash of rising and falling projectiles also produces some dust, a fair sample of which may be made by grating together two pieces of pumice.

Beds of volcanic ash occur widely among recent deposits in the western United States. In Nebraska ash beds are found in twenty counties, and are often as white as powdered pumice. The beds grow thicker and coa.r.s.er toward the southwestern part of the state, where their thickness sometimes reaches fifty feet. In what direction would you look for the now extinct volcano whose explosive eruptions are thus recorded?

TUFF. This is a convenient term designating any rock composed of volcanic fragments. Coa.r.s.e tuffs of angular fragments are called VOLCANIC BRECIA, and when the fragments have been rounded and sorted by water the rock is termed a VOLCANIC CONGLOMERATE. Even when deposited in the open air, as on the slopes of a volcano, tuffs may be rudely bedded and their fragments more or less rounded, and unless marine sh.e.l.ls or the remains of land plants and animals are found as fossils in them, there is often considerable difficulty in telling whether they were laid in water or in air. In either case they soon become consolidated. Chemical deposits from percolating waters fill the interstices, and the bed of loose fragments is cemented to hard rock.

The materials of which tuffs are composed are easily recognized as volcanic in their origin. The fragments are more or less cellular, according to the degree to which they were distended with steam when in a molten state, and even in the finest dust one may see the gla.s.s or the crystals of lava from which it was derived. Tuffs often contain VOCLANIC BOMBS,--b.a.l.l.s of lava which took shape while whirling in the air, and solidified before falling to the ground.

ANCIENT VOLCANIC ROCKS. It is in these materials and structures which we have described that volcanoes leave some of their most enduring records. Even the volcanic rocks of the earliest geological ages, uplifted after long burial beneath the sea and exposed to view by deep erosion, are recognized and their history read despite the many changes which they may have undergone. A sheet of ancient lava may be distinguished by its composition from the sediments among which it is imbedded. The direction of its flow lines may be noted.

The cellular and slaggy surface where the pasty lava was distended by escaping steam is recognized by the amygdules which now fill the ancient steam blebs. In a pile of successive sheets of lava each flow may be distinguished and its thickness measured; for the surface of each sheet is gla.s.sy and scoriaceous, while beneath its upper portions the lava of each flow is more dense and stony. The length of time which elapsed before a sheet was buried beneath the materials of succeeding eruptions may be told by the amount of weathering which it had undergone, the depth of ancient soil--now baked to solid rock--upon it, and the erosion which it had suffered in the interval.

If the flow occurred from some submarine volcano, we may recognize the fact by the sea-laid sediments which cover it, filling the cracks and crevices of its upper surface and containing pieces of lava washed from it in their basal layers.

Long-buried gla.s.sy lavas devitrify, or pa.s.s to a stony condition, under the unceasing action of underground waters; but their flow lines and perlitic and spherulitic structures remain to tell of their original state.

Ancient tuffs are known by the fragmental character of their volcanic material, even though they have been altered to firm rock. Some remains of land animals and plants may be found imbedded to tell that the beds were laid in open air; while the remains of marine organisms would prove as surely that the tuffs were deposited in the sea.

In these ways ancient volcanoes have been recognized near Boston, in southeastern Pennsylvania, about Lake Superior, and in other regions of the United States.

THE LIFE HISTORY OF A VOLCANO

The invasion of a region by volcanic forces is attended by movements of the crust heralded by earthquakes. A fissure or a pipe is opened and the building of the cone or the spreading of wide lava sheets is begun.

VOLCANIC CONES. The shape of a volcanic cone depends chiefly on the materials erupted. Cones made of fragments may have sides as steep as the angle of repose, which in the case of coa.r.s.e scoria is sometimes as high as thirty or forty degrees. About the base of the mountain the finer materials erupted are spread in more gentle slopes, and are also washed forward by rains and streams. The normal profile is thus a symmetric cone with a flaring base.

Cones built of lava vary in form according to the liquidity of the lava. Domes of gentle slope, as those of Hawaii, for example, are formed of basalt, which flows to long distances before it congeals. When superheated and emitted from many vents, this easily melted lava builds great plateaus, such as that of Iceland.

On the other hand, lavas less fusible, or poured out at a lower temperature, stiffen when they have flowed but a short distance, and acc.u.mulate in a steep cone. Trachyte has been extruded in a state so viscid that it has formed steepsided domes like that of Sarcoui.

Most volcanoes are built, like Vesuvius, both of lava flows and of tuffs, and sections show that the structure of the cone consists of outward-dipping, alternating layers of lava, scoria, and ashes.

From time to time the cone is rent by the violence of explosions and by the weight of the column of lava in the pipe. The fissures are filled with lava and some discharge on the sides of the mountain, building parasitic cones, while all form dikes, which strengthen the pile with ribs of hard rock and make it more difficult to rend.

Great catastrophes are recorded in the shape of some volcanoes which consist of a circular rim perhaps miles in diameter, inclosing a vast crater or a caldera within which small cones may rise. We may infer that at some time the top of the mountain has been blown off, or has collapsed and been engulfed because some reservoir beneath had been emptied by long-continued eruptions.

The cone-building stage may be said to continue until eruptions of lava and fragmental materials cease altogether. Sooner or later the volcanic forces s.h.i.+ft or die away, and no further eruptions add to the pile or replace its losses by erosion during periods of repose. Gases however are still emitted, and, as sulphur vapors are conspicuous among them, such vents are called SOLFATARAS.

Mount Hood, in Oregon, is an example of a volcano sunk to this stage. From a steaming rift on its side there rise sulphurous fumes which, half a mile down the wind, will tarnish a silver coin.

GEYSERS AND HOT SPRINGS. The hot springs of volcanic regions are among the last vestiges of volcanic heat. Periodically eruptive boiling springs are termed geysers. In each of the geyser regions of the earth--the Yellowstone National Park, Iceland, and New Zealand--the ground water of the locality is supposed to be heated by ancient lavas that, because of the poor conductivity of the rock, still remain hot beneath the surface.

OLD FAITHFUL, one of the many geysers of the Yellowstone National Park, plays a fountain of boiling water a hundred feet in air; while clouds of vapor from the escaping steam ascend to several times that height. The eruptions take place at intervals of from seventy to ninety minutes. In repose the geyser is a quiet pool, occupying a craterlike depression in a conical mound some twelve feet high. The conduit of the spring is too irregular to be sounded. The mound is composed of porous silica deposited by the waters of the geyser.

Geysers erupt at intervals instead of continuously boiling, because their long, narrow, and often tortuous conduits do not permit a free circulation of the water. After an eruption the tube is refilled and the water again gradually becomes heated. Deep in the tube where it is in contact with hot lavas the water sooner or later reaches the boiling point, and bursting into steam shoots the water above it high in air.

CARBONATED SPRINGS. After all the other signs of life have gone, the ancient volcano may emit carbon dioxide as its dying breath.

The springs of the region may long be charged with carbon dioxide, or carbonated, and where they rise through limestone may be expected to deposit large quant.i.ties of travertine. We should remember, however, that many carbonated springs, and many hot springs, are wholly independent of volcanoes.

THE DESTRUCTION OF THE CONE. As soon as the volcanic cone ceases to grow by eruptions the agents of erosion begin to wear it down, and the length of time that has elapsed since the period of active growth may be roughly measured by the degree to which the cone has been dissected. We infer that Mount Shasta, whose conical shape is still preserved despite the gullies one thousand feet deep which trench its sides, is younger than Mount Hood, which erosive agencies have carved to a pyramidal form. The pile of materials acc.u.mulated about a volcanic vent, no matter how vast in bulk, is at last swept entirely away. The cone of the volcano, active or extinct, is not old as the earth counts time; volcanoes are short- lived geological phenomena.

CRANDALL VOLCANO. This name is given to a dissected ancient volcano in the Yellowstone National Park, which once, it is estimated, reared its head thousands of feet above the surrounding country and greatly exceeded in bulk either Mount Shasta or Mount Etna. Not a line of the original mountain remains; all has been swept away by erosion except some four thousand feet of the base of the pile. This basal wreck now appears as a rugged region about thirty miles in diameter, trenched by deep valleys and cut into sharp peaks and precipitous ridges. In the center of the area is found the nucleus (N, Fig. 237),--a ma.s.s of coa.r.s.ely crystalline rock that congealed deep in the old volcanic pipe. From it there radiate in all directions, like the spokes of a wheel, long dikes whose rock grows rapidly finer of grain as it leaves the vicinity of the once heated core. The remainder of the base of the ancient mountain is made of rudely bedded tuffs and volcanic breccia, with occasional flows of lava, some of the fragments of the breccia measuring as much as twenty feet in diameter. On the sides of canyons the breccia is carved by rain erosion to fantastic pinnacles. At different levels in the midst of these beds of tuff and lava are many old forest grounds. The stumps and trunks of the trees, now turned to stone, still in many cases stand upright where once they grew on the slopes of the mountain as it was building (Fig. 238). The great size and age of some of these trees indicate, the lapse of time between the eruption whose lavas or tuffs weathered to the soil on which they grew and the subsequent eruption which buried them beneath showers of stones and ashes.

Near the edge of the area lies Death Gulch, in which carbon dioxide is given off in such quant.i.ties that in quiet weather it acc.u.mulates in a heavy layer along the ground and suffocates the animals which may enter it.

CHAPTER XII

UNDERGROUND STRUCTURES OF IGNEOUS ORIGIN