A Manual of Elementary Geology Part 62

[389-A] See Princ. of Geol., _Index_, "Graham Island," "Nyoe,"

"Conglomerates, volcanic," &c.

[390-A] MacCulloch, West. Isl., vol. ii. p. 487.

[390-B] Syst. of Geol., vol. ii. p. 114.

[390-C] Ibid.

[392-A] See Principles, chaps. xxiv-xxvii.

[393-A] See Principles, chaps. xxvi. and x.x.x.; 8th ed. p. 397-475.

[394-A] See Principles of Geol. ch. xxiv. (8th ed. p. 355.).

[394-B] See Lyell on Craters of Denudation, Quart. Geol. Journ.

vol. vi. p. 232.

CHAPTER x.x.x.

ON THE DIFFERENT AGES OF THE VOLCANIC ROCKS.

Tests of relative age of volcanic rocks--Test by superposition and intrusion--Dike of Quarrington Hill, Durham--Test by alteration of rocks in contact--Test by organic remains--Test of age by mineral character--Test by included fragments--Volcanic rocks of the Post-Pliocene period--Basalt of Bay of Trezza in Sicily--Post-Pliocene volcanic rocks near Naples--Dikes of Somma--Igneous formations of the Newer Pliocene period--Val di Noto in Sicily.

Having referred the sedimentary strata to a long succession of geological periods, we have next to consider how far the volcanic formations can be cla.s.sed in a similar chronological order. The tests of relative age in this cla.s.s of rocks are four:--1st, superposition and intrusion, with or without alteration of the rocks in contact; 2d, organic remains; 3d, mineral character; 4th, included fragments of older rocks.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 461. Cross section.]

_Tests by superposition, &c._--If a volcanic rock rests upon an aqueous deposit, the former must be the newest of the two, but the like rule does not hold good where the aqueous formation rests upon the volcanic, for melted matter, rising from below, may penetrate a sedimentary ma.s.s without reaching the surface, or may be forced in conformably between two strata, as _b_ at D in the annexed figure (fig. 461.), after which it may cool down and consolidate. Superposition, therefore, is not of the same value as a test of age in the unstratified volcanic rocks as in fossiliferous formations. We can only rely implicitly on this test where the volcanic rocks are contemporaneous, not where they are intrusive. Now they are said to be contemporaneous if produced by volcanic action, which was going on simultaneously with the deposition of the strata with which they are a.s.sociated. Thus in the section at D (fig. 461.), we may perhaps ascertain that the trap _b_ flowed over the fossiliferous bed _c_, and that, after its consolidation, _a_ was deposited upon it, _a_ and _c_ both belonging to the same geological period. But if the stratum _a_ be altered by _b_ at the point of contact, we must then conclude the trap to have been intrusive, or if, in pursuing _b_ for some distance, we find at length that it cuts through the stratum _a_, and then overlies it as at E.

We may, however, be easily deceived in supposing a volcanic rock to be intrusive, when in reality it is contemporaneous; for a sheet of lava, as it spreads over the bottom of the sea, cannot rest everywhere upon the same stratum, either because these have been denuded, or because, if newly thrown down, they thin out in certain places, thus allowing the lava to cross their edges. Besides, the heavy igneous fluid will often, as it moves along, cut a channel into beds of soft mud and sand. Suppose the submarine lava F to have come in contact in this manner with the strata _a_, _b_, _c_, and that after its consolidation, the strata _d_, _e_, are thrown down in a nearly horizontal position, yet so as to lie unconformably to F, the appearance of subsequent intrusion will here be complete, although the trap is in fact contemporaneous. We must not, therefore, hastily infer that the rock F is intrusive, unless we find the strata _d_ or _e_ to have been altered at their junction, as if by heat.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 462. Cross section.]

When trap dikes were described in the preceding chapter, they were shown to be more modern than all the strata which they traverse. A basaltic dike at Quarrington Hill, near Durham, pa.s.ses through coal-measures, the strata of which are inclined, and s.h.i.+fted so that those on the north side of the dike are 24 feet above the level of the corresponding beds on the south side (see section, fig. 463.). But the horizontal beds of overlying Red Sandstone and Magnesian Limestone are not cut through by the dike. Now here the coal-measures were not only deposited, but had subsequently been disturbed, fissured, and s.h.i.+fted, before the fluid trap now forming the dike was introduced into a rent. It is also clear that some of the upper edges of the coal strata, together with the upper part of the dike, had been subsequently removed by denudation before the lower New Red Sandstone and Magnesian Limestone were superimposed. Even in this case, however, although the date of the volcanic eruption is brought within narrow limits, it cannot be defined with precision; it may have happened either at the close of the Carboniferous period, or early in that of the Lower New Red Sandstone, or between these two periods, when the state of the animate creation and the physical geography of Europe were gradually changing from the type of the Carboniferous era to that of the Permian.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 463. Section at Quarrington Hill, east of Durham. (Sedgwick.)

_a._ Magnesian Limestone (Permian).

_b._ Lower New Red Sandstone.

_c._ Coal strata.]

The test of age by superposition is strictly applicable to all stratified volcanic tuffs, according to the rules already explained in the case of other sedimentary deposits. (See p. 96.)

_Test of age by organic remains._--We have seen how, in the vicinity of active volcanos, scoriae, pumice, fine sand, and fragments of rock are thrown up into the air, and then showered down upon the land, or into neighbouring lakes or seas. In the tuffs so formed sh.e.l.ls, corals, or any other durable organic bodies which may happen to be strewed over the bottom of a lake or sea will be imbedded, and thus continue as permanent memorials of the geological period when the volcanic eruption occurred.

Tufaceous strata thus formed in the neighbourhood of Vesuvius, Etna, Stromboli, and other volcanos now active in islands or near the sea, may give information of the relative age of these tuffs at some remote future period when the fires of these mountains are extinguished. By such evidence we can distinctly establish the coincidence in age of volcanic rocks, and the different primary, secondary, and tertiary fossiliferous strata already considered.

The tuffs now alluded to are not exclusively marine, but include, in some places, freshwater sh.e.l.ls; in others, the bones of terrestrial quadrupeds.

The diversity of organic remains in formations of this nature is perfectly intelligible, if we reflect on the wide dispersion of ejected matter during late eruptions, such as that of the volcano of Coseguina, in the province of Nicaragua, January 19. 1835. Hot cinders and fine scoriae were then cast up to a vast height, and covered the ground as they fell to the depth of more than 10 feet, and for a distance of 8 leagues from the crater in a southerly direction. Birds, cattle, and wild animals were scorched to death in great numbers, and buried in these ashes. Some volcanic dust fell at Chiapa, upwards of 1200 miles to windward of the volcano, a striking proof of a counter current in the upper region of the atmosphere; and some on Jamaica, about 700 miles distant to the north-east. In the sea, also, at the distance of 1100 miles from the point of eruption, Captain Eden of the Conway sailed 40 miles through floating pumice, among which were some pieces of considerable size.[399-A]

_Test of age by mineral composition._--As sediment of h.o.m.ogeneous composition, when discharged from the mouth of a large river, is often deposited simultaneously over a wide s.p.a.ce, so a particular kind of lava, flowing from a crater during one eruption, may spread over an extensive area; as in Iceland in 1783, when the melted matter, pouring from Skaptar Jokul, flowed in streams in opposite directions, and caused a continuous ma.s.s, the extreme points of which were 90 miles distant from each other.

This enormous current of lava varied in thickness from 100 feet to 600 feet, and in breadth from that of a narrow river gorge to 15 miles.[399-B]

Now, if such a ma.s.s should afterwards be divided into separate fragments by denudation, we might still perhaps identify the detached portions by their similarity in mineral composition. Nevertheless, this test will not always avail the geologist; for, although there is usually a prevailing character in lava emitted during the same eruption, and even in the successive currents flowing from the same volcano, still, in many cases, the different parts even of one lava-stream, or, as before stated, of one continuous ma.s.s of trap, vary so much in mineral composition and texture as to render these characters of minor importance when compared to their value in the chronology of the fossiliferous rocks.

It will, however, be seen in the description which follows, of the European trap rocks of different ages, that they had often a peculiar lithological character, resembling the differences before remarked as existing between the modern lavas of Vesuvius, Etna, and Chili. (See p. 378.)

It has been remarked that in Auvergne, the Eifel, and other countries where trachyte and basalt are both present, the trachytic rocks are for the most part older than the basaltic. These rocks do, indeed, sometimes alternate partially, as in the volcano of Mont Dor, in Auvergne; but the great ma.s.s of trachyte occupies in general an inferior position, and is cut through and overflowed by basalt. It can by no means be inferred that trachyte predominated greatly at one period of the earth's history and basalt at another, for we know that trachytic lavas have been formed at many successive periods, and are still emitted from many active craters; but it seems that in each region, where a long series of eruptions have occurred, the more felspathic lavas have been first emitted, and the escape of the more augitic kinds has followed. The hypothesis suggested by Mr. Scrope may, perhaps, afford a solution of this problem. The minerals, he observes, which abound in basalt are of greater specific gravity than those composing the felspathic lavas; thus, for example, hornblende, augite, and olivine are each more than three times the weight of water; whereas common felspar, albite, and Labrador felspar, have each scarcely more than 2-1/2 times the specific gravity of water; and the difference is increased in consequence of there being much more iron in a metallic state in basalt and greenstone than in trachyte and other felspathic lavas and traps. If, therefore, a large quant.i.ty of rock be melted up in the bowels of the earth by volcanic heat, the denser ingredients of the boiling fluid may sink to the bottom, and the lighter remaining above would in that case be first propelled upwards to the surface by the expansive power of gases. Those materials, therefore, which occupied the lowest place in the subterranean reservoir will always be emitted last, and take the uppermost place on the exterior of the earth's crust.

_Test by included fragments._--We may sometimes discover the relative age of two trap rocks, or of an aqueous deposit and the trap on which it rests, by finding fragments of one included in the other, in cases such as those before alluded to, where the evidence of superposition alone would be insufficient. It is also not uncommon to find conglomerates almost exclusively composed of rolled pebbles of trap, a.s.sociated with stratified rocks in the neighbourhood of ma.s.ses of intrusive trap. If the pebbles agree generally in mineral character with the latter, we are then enabled to determine the age of the intrusive rock by knowing that of the fossiliferous strata a.s.sociated with the conglomerate. The origin of such conglomerates is explained by observing the s.h.i.+ngle beaches composed of trap pebbles in modern volcanic islands, or at the base of Etna.

_Post-Pliocene Period (including the Recent)._--I shall now select examples of contemporaneous volcanic rocks of successive geological periods, to show that igneous causes have been in activity in all past ages of the world, and that they have been ever s.h.i.+fting the places where they have broken out at the earth's surface.

One portion of the lavas, tuffs, and trap dikes of Etna, Vesuvius, and the Island of Ischia, has been produced within the historical era; another, and a far more considerable part, originated at times immediately antecedent, when the waters of the Mediterranean were already inhabited by the existing species of testacea. The southern and eastern flanks of Etna are skirted by a fringe of alternating sedimentary and volcanic deposits, of submarine origin, as at Adern, Trezza, and other places. Of sixty-five species of fossil sh.e.l.ls which I procured in 1828 from this formation, near Trezza, it was impossible to distinguish any from species now living in the neighbouring sea.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 464. View of the Isle of Cyclops in the Bay of Trezza.[401-A]]

The Cyclopian Islands, called by the Sicilians Dei Faraglioni, in the sea cliffs of which these beds of clay, tuff, and a.s.sociated lava are laid open to view, are situated in the Bay of Trezza, and may be regarded as the extremity of a promontory severed from the main land.

Here numerous proofs are seen of submarine eruptions, by which the argillaceous and sandy strata were invaded and cut through, and tufaceous breccias formed. Inclosed in these breccias are many angular and hardened fragments of laminated clay in different states of alteration by heat, and intermixed with volcanic sands.

The loftiest of the Cyclopian islets, or rather rocks, is about 200 feet in height, the summit being formed of a ma.s.s of stratified clay, the laminae of which are occasionally subdivided by thin arenaceous layers. These strata dip to the N.W., and rest on a ma.s.s of columnar lava (see fig. 464.) in which the tops of the pillars are weathered, and so rounded as to be often hemispherical. In some places in the adjoining and largest islet of the group, which lies to the north-eastward of that represented in the drawing (fig. 464.), the overlying clay has been greatly altered, and hardened by the igneous rock, and occasionally contorted in the most extraordinary manner; yet the lamination has not been obliterated, but, on the contrary, rendered much more conspicuous, by the indurating process.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 465. Contortions of strata in the largest of the Cyclopian Islands.]

In the annexed woodcut (fig. 465.) I have represented a portion of the altered rock, a few feet square, where the alternating thin laminae of sand and clay have put on the appearance which we often observe in some of the most contorted of the metamorphic schists.

A great fissure, running from east to west, nearly divides this larger island into two parts, and lays open its internal structure. In the section thus exhibited, a dike of lava is seen, first cutting through an older ma.s.s of lava, and then penetrating the superinc.u.mbent tertiary strata. In one place the lava ramifies and terminates in thin veins, from a few feet to a few inches in thickness. (See fig. 466.)

The arenaceous laminae are much hardened at the point of contact, and the clays are converted into siliceous schist. In this island the altered rocks a.s.sume a honeycombed structure on their weathered surface, singularly contrasted with the smooth and even outline which the same beds present in their usual soft and yielding state.

The pores of the lava are sometimes coated, or entirely filled, with carbonate of lime, and with a zeolite resembling a.n.a.lcime, which has been called cyclopite. The latter mineral has also been found in small fissures traversing the altered marl, showing that the same cause which introduced the minerals into the cavities of the lava, whether we suppose sublimation or aqueous infiltration, conveyed it also into the open rents of the contiguous sedimentary strata.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 466. Post-Pliocene strata invaded by lava, Isle of Cyclops (horizontal section).

_a._ Lava.

_b._ Laminated clay and sand.

_c._ The same altered.]

_Post-Pliocene formations near Naples._--I have traced in the "Principles of Geology" the history of the changes which the volcanic region of Campania is known to have undergone during the last 2000 years. The aggregate effect of igneous operations during that period is far from insignificant, comprising as it does the formation of the modern cone of Vesuvius since the year 79, and the production of several minor cones in Ischia, together with that of Monte Nuovo in the year 1538. Lava-currents have also flowed upon the land and along the bottom of the sea--volcanic sand, pumice, and scoriae have been showered down so abundantly, that whole cities were buried--tracts of the sea have been filled up or converted into shoals--and tufaceous sediment has been transported by rivers and land-floods to the sea. There are also proofs, during the same recent period, of a permanent alteration of the relative levels of the land and sea in several places, and of the same tract having, near Puzzuoli, been alternately upheaved and depressed to the amount of more than 20 feet. In connection with these convulsions, there are found, on the sh.o.r.es of the Bay of Baiae, recent tufaceous strata, filled with articles fabricated by the hands of man, and mingled with marine sh.e.l.ls.

It was also stated in this work (p. 113.), that when we examine this same region, it is found to consist largely of tufaceous strata, of a date anterior to human history or tradition, which are of such thickness as to const.i.tute hills from 500 to more than 2000 feet in height. These post-pliocene strata, containing recent marine sh.e.l.ls, alternate with distinct currents and sheets of lava which were of contemporaneous origin; and we find that in Vesuvius itself, the ancient cone called Somma is of far greater volume than the modern cone, and is intersected by a far greater number of dikes. In contrasting this ancient part of the mountain with that of modern date, one princ.i.p.al point of difference is observed; namely, the greater frequency in the older cone of fragments of altered sedimentary rocks ejected during eruptions. We may easily conceive that the first explosions would act with the greatest violence, rending and shattering whatever solid ma.s.ses obstructed the escape of lava and the accompanying gases, so that great heaps of ejected pieces of rock would naturally occur in the tufaceous breccias formed by the earliest eruptions.

But when a pa.s.sage had once been opened, and an habitual vent established, the materials thrown out would consist of liquid lava, which would take the form of sand and scoriae, or of angular fragments of such solid lavas as may have choked up the vent.

Among the fragments which abound in the tufaceous breccias of Somma, none are more common than a saccharoid dolomite, supposed to have been derived from an ordinary limestone altered by heat and volcanic vapours.

Carbonate of lime enters into the composition of so many of the simple minerals found in Somma, that M. Mitscherlich, with much probability, ascribes their great variety to the action of the volcanic heat on subjacent ma.s.ses of limestone.