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
Near Valparaiso the prevailing rock is gneiss, generally including much
hornblende: concretionary balls formed of feldspar, hornblende and
mica, from two or three feet in diameter, are in very many places
conformably enfolded by the foliated gneiss: veins of quartz and
feldspar, including black schorl and well-crystallised epidote, are
numerous. Epidote likewise occurs in the gneiss in thin layers,
parallel to the foliation of the mass. One large vein of a coarse
granitic character was remarkable from in one part quite changing its
character, and insensibly passing into a blackish porphyry, including
acicular crystals of glassy feldspar and of hornblende: I have never
seen any other such case. (Humboldt “Personal Narrative” volume 4 page
60, has described with much surprise, concretionary balls, with
concentric divisions, composed of partially vitreous feldspar,
hornblende, and garnets, included within great veins of gneiss, which
cut across the mica-slate near Venezuela.)
I shall in the few following remarks on the rocks of Chile allude
exclusively to their foliation and cleavage. In the gneiss round
Valparaiso the strike of the foliation is very variable, but I think
about N. by W. and S. by E. is the commonest direction; this likewise
holds good with the cleavage of the altered feldspathic clay-slates,
occasionally met with on the coast for ninety miles north of
Valparaiso. Some feldspathic slate, alternating with strata of
claystone porphyry in the Bell of Quillota and at Jajuel, and
therefore, perhaps, belonging to a later period than the metamorphic
schists on the coast, cleaved in this same direction. In the Eastern
Cordillera, in the Portillo Pass, there is a grand mass of mica- slate,
foliated in a north and south line, and with a high westerly dip: in
the Uspallata range, clay-slate and grauwacke have a highly inclined,
nearly north and south cleavage, though in some parts the strike is
irregular: in the main or Cumbre range, the direction of the cleavage
in the feldspathic clay-slate is N.W. and S.E.
Between Coquimbo and Guasco there are two considerable formations of
mica- slate, in one of which the rock passed sometimes into common
clay-slate and sometimes into a glossy black variety, very like that in
the Chonos Archipelago. The folia and cleavage of these rocks ranged
between [N. and N.W. by N.] and [S. and S.W. by S.]. Near the Port of
Guasco several varieties of altered clay-slate have a quite irregular
cleavage. Between Guasco and Copiapo, there are some siliceous and
talcaceous slates cleaving in a north and south line, with an easterly
dip of between 60 and 70 degrees: high up, also, the main valley of
Copiapo, there is mica-slate with a high easterly dip. In the whole
space between Valparaiso and Copiapo an easterly dip is much more
common than an opposite or westerly one.
CONCLUDING REMARKS ON CLEAVAGE AND FOLIATION.
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