A Manual of Elementary Geology Part 73

The total absence of any trace of fossils has inclined many geologists to attribute the origin of crystalline strata to a period antecedent to the existence of organic beings. Admitting, they say, the obliteration, in some cases, of fossils by plutonic action, we might still expect that traces of them would oftener occur in certain ancient systems of slate, in which, as in c.u.mberland, some conglomerates occur. But in urging this argument, it seems to have been forgotten that there are stratified formations of enormous thickness, and of various ages, and some of them very modern, all formed after the earth had become the abode of living creatures, which are, nevertheless, in certain districts, entirely dest.i.tute of all vestiges of organic bodies. In some, the traces of fossils may have been effaced by water and acids, at many successive periods; and it is clear, that, the older the stratum, the greater is the chance of its being non-fossiliferous, even if it has escaped all metamorphic action.

It has been also objected to the metamorphic theory, that the chemical composition of the secondary strata differs essentially from that of the crystalline schists, into which they are supposed to be convertible.[479-B]

The "primary" schists, it is said, usually contain a considerable proportion of potash or of soda, which the secondary clays, shales, and slates do not, these last being the result of the decomposition of felspathic rocks, from which the alkaline matter has been abstracted during the process of decomposition. But this reasoning proceeds on insufficient and apparently mistaken data; for a large portion of what is usually called clay, marl, shale, and slate does actually contain a certain, and often a considerable, proportion of alkali; so that it is difficult, in many countries, to obtain clay or shale sufficiently free from alkaline ingredients to allow of their being burnt into bricks or used for pottery.

Thus the argillaceous shales and slates of the Old Red sandstone, in Forfars.h.i.+re and other parts of Scotland, are so much charged with alkali, derived from triturated felspar, that, instead of hardening when exposed to fire, they sometimes melt into a gla.s.s. They contain no lime, but appear to consist of extremely minute grains of the various ingredients of granite, which are distinctly visible in the coa.r.s.er-grained varieties, and in almost all the interposed sandstones.

These laminated clays and shales might certainly, if crystallized, resemble in composition many of the primary strata.

There is also potash in fossil vegetable remains, and soda in the salts by which strata are sometimes so largely impregnated, as in Patagonia.

Another objection has been derived from the alternation of highly crystalline strata with others having a less crystalline texture. The heat, it is said, in its ascent from below, must have traversed the less altered schists before it reached a higher and more crystalline bed. In answer to this, it may be observed, that if a number of strata differing greatly in composition from each other be subjected to equal quant.i.ties of heat, there is every probability that some will be more fusible than others. Some, for example, will contain soda, potash, lime, or some other ingredient capable of acting as a flux; while others may be dest.i.tute of the same elements, and so refractory as to be very slightly affected by a degree of heat capable of reducing others to semi-fusion. Nor should it be forgotten that, as a general rule, the less crystalline rocks do really occur in the upper, and the more crystalline in the lower part of each metamorphic series.

There are geologists, however, of high authority, who admit the metamorphic origin of gneiss and mica-schist even on a grand scale in some mountain-chains, and who nevertheless believe that gneiss has in some instances been an eruptive rock, deriving its lamination from motion when in a fluid or viscous state. Mr. Scrope, in his description of the Ponza Islands, ascribes "the zoned structure of the Hungarian perlite (a semi-vitreous trachyte) to its having subsided, in obedience to the impulse of its own gravity, down a slightly inclined plane, while possessed of an imperfect fluidity. In the islands of Ponza and Palmarola, the direction of the zones is more frequently vertical than horizontal, because the ma.s.s was impelled from below upwards."[480-A] In like manner, 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. He compares this division into parallel zones, thus caused by the stretching of a pasty ma.s.s as it flowed slowly onwards, to the zoned or ribboned structure of ice, which Professor James Forbes has so ably explained, showing that it is due to the fissuring of a viscous body in motion.[480-B] Mr. Darwin also imagines the lamination or _foliation_, as he terms it, of gneiss and mica-schist in South America to be the extreme result of that process of which cleavage is the first effect.[480-C]

M. Elie de Beaumont, while he regards the greater part of the gneiss and mica-schist of the Alps as sedimentary strata altered by plutonic action, still conceives that some of the Alpine gneiss may have been erupted, or, in other words, may be granite drawn out into parallel laminae in the manner of trachyte as above alluded to.[480-D]

Opinions such as these, and others which might be cited, prove the difficulty of arriving at clear theoretical views on this subject. I may also add another difficulty. In many extensive regions experienced geologists have been at a loss to decide which of two sets of divisional planes were referable to cleavage and which to stratification; and that, too, where the rocks are of undisputed aqueous origin. After much doubt, they have sometimes discovered that they had at first mistaken the lines of cleavage for those of deposition, because the former were by far the most marked of the two. Now if such slaty ma.s.ses should become highly crystalline, and be converted into gneiss, hornblende-schist, or any other member of the hypogene cla.s.s, the cleavage planes would be more likely to remain visible than those of stratification.

But although the cause last-mentioned may, in some instances, be a "vera causa," as applied to gneiss and mica-schist, I believe it to be an exception to the general rule. Nor would it, I conceive, produce that kind of irregular parallelism in the laminae which belongs to so many of the hypogene rocks of the Grampians, Pyrenees, and the White mountains of North America, where I have chiefly studied them.

But it will be impossible for the reader duly to appreciate the propriety of the term metamorphic, as applied to the strata formerly called primitive, until I have shown, in the next chapter, at how many distinct periods these crystalline strata have been formed.

FOOTNOTES:

[474-A] Keilhau, Gaea Norvegica, pp. 61-63.

[475-A] Geol. Manual, p. 479.

[475-B] Phil. Trans., 1804.

[476-A] Poggendorf's Annalen, No. xvi., 2d series, vol. iii.

[476-B] See Principles, _Index_, "Carbonated Springs," &c.

[476-C] Hoffmann's Liparischen Inseln, p. 38. Leipzig, 1832.

[477-A] See Princ. of Geol.; and Bulletin de la Soc. Geol. de France, tom. ii. p. 230.

[477-B] See Princ. of Geol.; and Daubeny's Volcanos, p. 167.

[477-C] Jam. Ed. New Phil. Journ., No. 51. p. 43.

[478-A] Syst. of Geol., vol. i. p. 210.

[478-B] Ibid., p. 211.

[478-C] See above, pp. 327, 333.

[479-A] See Lyell, Quart. Geol. Journ., vol. i. p. 199.

[479-B] Dr. Boase, Primary Geology, p. 319.

[480-A] Geol. Trans., 2d series, vol. ii. p. 227.

[480-B] Darwin, Volcanic Islands, pp. 69, 70.

[480-C] Geol. Obs. in S. America, p. 167. See also above, p. 471.

[480-D] Bulletin, vol. iv. p. 1301.

CHAPTER x.x.xVII.

ON THE DIFFERENT AGES OF THE METAMORPHIC ROCKS.

Age of each set of metamorphic strata twofold--Test of age by fossils and mineral character not available--Test by superposition ambiguous--Conversion of dense ma.s.ses of fossiliferous strata into metamorphic rocks--Limestone and shale of Carrara--Metamorphic strata of modern periods in the Alps of Switzerland and Savoy--Why the visible crystalline strata are none of them very modern--Order of succession in metamorphic rocks--Uniformity of mineral character--Why the metamorphic strata are less calcareous than the fossiliferous.

According to the theory adopted in the last chapter, the age of each set of metamorphic strata is twofold--they have been deposited at one period, they 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 crystallization. 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. If in the latter, it should be called Eocene when regarded as a metamorphic rock, although it be lia.s.sic when considered in reference to the era of its deposition. According to this view, the superposition of chalk does not prevent the subjacent _metamorphic_ rock from being Eocene. If, however, in the progress of science, we should succeed in ascertaining the twofold chronological relations of the metamorphic formations, it might be useful to adopt a twofold terminology.

We might call the strata above alluded to Lia.s.sic-Eocene, or Lia.s.sic-Cretaceous strata of the Hypogene cla.s.s; the first term referring to the era of deposition, the second to that of crystallization.

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 the two preceding Chapters.)

But when the metamorphic action has operated on a grander scale, it tends entirely to destroy all monuments of the date of its development. 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 we have to compare two portions of a mountain chain--the one metamorphic, and the other unaltered--all the labour and skill of the most practised observers are required. 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.

_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 downwards into talc-schist and garnetiferous mica-schist; these rocks again graduating downwards into gneiss, which is penetrated, at Forno, by granite veins. Now the researches of MM. Savi, Boue, Pareto, Guidoni, De la Beche, Hoffmann, and Pilla, have 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, euphotide, 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.[483-A]

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 common method of geological cla.s.sification, 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.

_Alps of Switzerland._--In the Alps, a.n.a.logous conclusions have been drawn respecting the alteration of strata on a still more extended scale. In the eastern part of that chain, some of the primary fossiliferous strata, as well as the older secondary formations, together with the oolitic and cretaceous rocks, are distinctly recognizable. Tertiary deposits also appear in a less elevated position on the flanks of the Eastern Alps; but in the Central or Swiss Alps, the primary fossiliferous and older secondary 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. In regard to the age of this vast a.s.semblage of crystalline strata, we can merely affirm that some of the upper portions are altered newer secondary, and some of them even Eocene deposits; but we cannot avoid suspecting that the disappearance both of the older secondary and primary fossiliferous rocks may be owing to their having been all converted in this region into crystalline schist.

It is difficult to convey to those who have never visited the Alps a just idea of the various proofs which concur to produce this conviction. In the first place, there are certain regions where Oolitic, Cretaceous, and Eocene strata have been turned into granular marble, gneiss, and other metamorphic schists, near their contact with granite. This fact shows undeniably that plutonic causes continued to be in operation in the Alps down to a late period, even after the deposition of some of the nummulitic or older Eocene formations. Having established this point, we are the more willing to believe that many inferior fossiliferous rocks, probably exposed for longer periods to a similar action, may have become metamorphic to a still greater extent.

We also discover in parts of the Swiss Alps dense ma.s.ses of secondary and even tertiary strata, which have a.s.sumed that semi-crystalline texture which Werner called transition, and which naturally led his followers, who attached great importance to mineral characters taken alone, to cla.s.s them as transition formations, or as groups older than the lowest secondary rocks. (See p. 92.) Now, it is probable that these strata have been affected, although 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 cannot doubt, and we have already seen (p. 445.) that 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 upwards 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 we find the most stupendous monuments of mechanical violence, by which strata thousands of feet thick have been bent, folded, and overturned. (See p. 58.) It is here that 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.

If the reader will consult the works of many eminent geologists who have explored the Alps, especially those of MM. De Beaumont, Studer, Necker, Boue, and Murchison, he will learn that they all share, more or less fully, in the opinions above expressed. It has, indeed, been stated by MM. Studer and Hugi, that there are complete alternations on a large scale of secondary strata, containing fossils, with gneiss and other rocks, of a perfectly metamorphic structure. I have visited some of the most remarkable localities referred to by these authors; but although agreeing with them that there are pa.s.sages from the fossiliferous to the metamorphic series far from the contact of granite or other plutonic rocks, I was unable to convince myself that the distinct alternations of highly crystalline, with unaltered strata above alluded to, might not admit of a different explanation. 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.

On the Sattel also, at the base of the Gestellihorn, above Enzen, in the valley of Urbach, near Meyringen, some of the intercalations of gneiss between fossiliferous strata may, I conceive, be ascribed to mechanical derangement. Almost any hypothesis of repeated changes of position may be resorted to in a region of such extraordinary confusion. The secondary strata may first have been vertical, and then certain portions may have become metamorphic (the plutonic influence ascending from below), while intervening strata remained unchanged. The whole series of beds may then again have been thrown into a nearly horizontal position, giving rise to the superposition of crystalline upon fossiliferous formations.

It was remarked, in Chap. x.x.xIV., that as the hypogene rocks, both stratified and unstratified, crystallize 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.

_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, 1st, saccharine marble; 2dly, talcose-schist; and 3dly, of quartz-rock and gneiss; where unaltered, of, 1st, fossiliferous limestone; 2dly, shale; and 3dly, sandstone.