2. The interstratified or volcanic series is of special importance in
geology, inasmuch as it contains the records of volcanic action during
the past history of the globe. It was pointed out in Part I. that
while towards the end of the 18th and in the beginning of the 19th
century much attention was paid by Hutton and his followers to the
proofs of intrusion afforded by what they called the "unerupted lavas"
within the earth's crust, these observers lost sight of the
possibility that some of these rocks might have been erupted at the
surface, and might thus be chronicles of volcanic action in former
geological periods. It is not always possible to satisfactorily
discriminate between the two types of contemporaneously intercalated
and subsequently injected material. But rocks of the former type have
not broken into or involved the overlying strata, and they are usually
marked by the characteristic structures of superficial lavas and by
their association with volcanic tuffs. By means of the evidence which
they supply, it has been ascertained that volcanic action has been
manifested in the globe since the earliest geological periods. In the
British Isles, for example, the volcanic record is remarkably full for
the long series of ages from Cambrian to Permian time, and again for
the older Tertiary period.
2. SUBSEQUENTLY INDUCED STRUCTURES
After their accumulation, whether as stratified or eruptive masses, all
kinds of rocks have been subject to various changes, and have acquired
in consequence a variety of superinduced structures. It has been pointed
out in the part of this article dealing with dynamical geology that one
of the most important forms of energy in the evolution of geological
processes is to be found in the movements that take place within the
crust of the earth. Some of these movements are so slight as to be only
recognizable by means of delicate instruments; but from this inferior
limit they range up to gigantic convulsions by which mountain-chains are
upheaved. The crust must be regarded as in a perpetual state of strain,
and its component materials are therefore subject to all the effects
which flow from that condition. It is the one great object of the
geotectonic division of geology to study the structures which have been
developed in consequence of earth-movements, and to discover from this
investigation the nature of the processes whereby the rocks of the crust
have been brought into the condition and the positions in which we now
find them. The details of this subject will be found in separate
articles descriptive of each of the technical terms applied to the
several kinds of superinduced structures. All that need be offered here
is a general outline connecting the several portions of the subject
together.
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