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
The fact of the cleavage-laminae in the clay-slate of Tierra del Fuego,
where seen cutting straight through the planes of stratification, and
where consequently there could be no doubt about their nature,
differing slightly in colour, texture, and hardness, appears to me very
interesting. In a thick mass of laminated, feldspathic and altered
clay-slate, interposed between two great strata of porphyritic
conglomerate in Central Chile, and where there could be but little
doubt about the bedding, I observed similar slight differences in
composition, and likewise some distinct thin layers of epidote,
parallel to the highly inclined cleavage of the mass. Again, I
incidentally noticed in North Wales, where glaciers had passed over the
truncated edges of the highly inclined laminae of clay-slate, that the
surface, though smooth, was worn into small parallel undulations,
caused by the competent laminae being of slightly different degrees of
hardness. (“London Philosophical Magazine” volume 21 page 182.) With
reference to the slates of North Wales, Professor Sedgwick describes
the planes of cleavage, as “coated over with chlorite and
semi-crystalline matter, which not only merely define the planes in
question, but strike in parallel flakes through the whole mass of the
rock.” (“Geological Transactions” volume 3 page 471.) In some of those
glossy and hard varieties of clay-slate, which may often be seen
passing into mica-schist, it has appeared to me that the cleavage-
planes were formed of excessively thin, generally slighted convoluted,
folia, composed of microscopically minute scales of mica. From these
several facts, and more especially from the case of the clay-slate in
Tierra del Fuego, it must, I think, be concluded, that the same power
which has impressed on the slate its fissile structure or cleavage has
tended to modify its mineralogical character in parallel planes.
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