Fossil Ice Crystals: An Instance of the Practical Value of "Pure Science" — John Shaqi
Fossil Ice Crystals: An Instance of the Practical Value of "Pure Science"Udden, Johan August
Science
Fossil Ice Crystals: An Instance of the Practical Value of "Pure Science"
Udden, Johan August
Fossils; Ice
As I had no suitable photographic equipment, I took pains to make
accurate drawings of a part of the pattern as it appeared on the rock.
My original drawing is shown in Plate I. A brief description of these
markings was later furnished in the Scientific American, of February 19,
1895.
It took me some years to find any similar markings again. In the early
spring of 1903 I had occasion to make a visit to Mexico, when I spent a
half day in Ojinaga, which is a little village south of Presidio, in
Texas, on the Mexican side of the river. Some sidewalks in this little
village are built of flags of limestone belonging to the Eagle Ford
formation. To my great delight I found some of these slabs having
precisely the same kind of markings that I had noted on the sandstone in
Dakota. Naturally I attached some importance to the fact that the Eagle
Ford corresponds quite closely in age to that of the Dakota sandstone.
Both were made at about the beginning of the upper Cretaceous age. I
noticed here a considerable variation in the closeness of the patterns
of the markings. Occasionally they were found as separate single lines,
several inches removed from each other; and on other rocks they would
be found crossing in close networks. In the summer of 1904 I again found
my ice markings on a layer of arenaceous limestone in the same formation
in the Big Bend country in Texas. This time I collected some specimens
which were subsequently photographed. One of these photographs is shown
in Plate II. Again in 1906 I noticed the same markings on some thin
sandy flags which occur in the Del Rio clay near the city of Del Rio. In
this case the needle-like crystals were somewhat more slender than those
previously seen, and some were slightly curved and somewhat more
elongated. These of course interested me as showing the occurrence of
freezing temperatures no doubt at a somewhat earlier time than that
pertaining to my previous observations.
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