Geological Observations on South AmericaDarwin, Charles
Science
Geological Observations on South America
Darwin, Charles
Beagle Expedition (1831-1836); Geology -- South America; Mollusks, Fossil -- South America; Paleontology
At Rosario there is but little tosca-rock: near this place I first
noticed at the edge of the river traces of an underlying formation,
which, twenty- five miles higher up in the estancia of Gorodona,
consists of a pale yellowish clay, abounding with concretionary
cylinders of a ferruginous sandstone. This bed, which is probably the
equivalent of the older tertiary marine strata, immediately to be
described in Entre Rios, only just rises above the level of the Parana
when low. The rest of the cliff at Gorodona, is formed of red Pampean
mud, with, in the lower part, many concretions of tosca, some
stalacti-formed, and with only a few in the upper part: at the height
of six feet above the river, two gigantic skeletons of the Mastodon
Andium were here embedded; their bones were scattered a few feet apart,
but many of them still held their proper relative positions: they were
much decayed and as soft as cheese, so that even one of the great molar
teeth fell into pieces in my hand. We here see that the Pampean deposit
contains mammiferous remains close to its base. On the banks of the
Carcarana, a few miles distant, the lowest bed visible was pale Pampean
mud, with masses of tosca-rock, in one of which I found a much decayed
tooth of the Mastodon: above this bed, there was a thin layer almost
composed of small concretions of white tosca, out of which I extracted
a well preserved, but slightly broken tooth of Toxodon Platensis: above
this there was an unusual bed of very soft impure sandstone. In this
neighbourhood I noticed many single embedded bones, and I heard of
others having been found in so perfect a state that they were long used
as gate-posts: the Jesuit Falkner found here the dermal armour of some
gigantic Edental quadruped.
In some of the red mud scraped from a tooth of one of the Mastodons at
Gorodona, Professor Ehrenberg finds seven Polygastrica and thirteen
Phytolitharia, all of them, I believe, with two exceptions, already
known species. (“Monatsberichten der konig. Akad. zu Berlin” April
1845. The list consists of:—
POLYGASTRICA. Campylodiscus clypeus. Coscinodiscus subtilis.
Coscinodiscus al. sp. Eunotia. Gallionella granulata. Himantidium
gracile. Pinnularia borealis.)
Of these twenty, the preponderating number are of fresh-water origin;
only two species of Coscinodiscus and a Spongolithis show the direct
influence of the sea; therefore Professor Ehrenberg arrives at the
important conclusion that the deposit must have been of brackish-water
origin. Of the thirteen Phytolitharia, nine are met with in the two
deposits in Bahia Blanca, where there is evidence from two other
species of Polygastrica that the beds were accumulated in brackish
water. The traces of coral, sponges, and Polythalamia, found by Dr.
Carpenter in the tosca-rock (of which I must observe the greater number
of specimens were from the upper beds in the southern parts of the
formation), apparently show a more purely marine origin.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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