The Geological Story of the Isle of WightHughes, J. Cecil (John Cecil)
Science
The Geological Story of the Isle of Wight
Hughes, J. Cecil (John Cecil)
Geology -- England -- Isle of Wight; Geology, Stratigraphic -- Tertiary; Paleontology -- England -- Isle of Wight
Again, as the heated interior of the earth gradually cools by the
radiation of the earth's heat into space, it will tend to shrink away
from the cooler rocks of the crust. This then, sinking in upon the
shrinking interior, will be thrown into folds, like the skin on a
shrivelled apple. Seeing, as we often do, layers of rock thrown into
numerous folds, so as to occupy a horizontal space far less than that
in which they were originally laid down, we can hardly resist the
conclusion that shrinkage of the cooling interior of the earth has
been a chief cause of the greatest movements of the surface, and of
the lateral pressure we so often find the strata to have undergone.
As we study geology we shall find plenty to show that the land does
rise and fall, that where now is land the sea has been, that land once
stretched where now is sea, though there is still much which is not
well understood about the causes of its movements. We have seen how
many of the rocks are made in the sea,--the sandstones and the
clays,--but there are two other kinds of rocks, about which we must
say a little. The first are the Igneous rocks, which means rocks made
by fire. These rocks have solidified, most frequently in crystalline
forms, from a molten mass. Lava, which flows hot and fluid, from a
volcano, and cooling becomes a sheet of solid rock, is an igneous
rock. Some igneous rocks solidify under ground under great pressure,
and become crystalline rocks such as granite. We shall not find these
rocks in the Isle of Wight. We should find them in Cornwall, Wales,
and Scotland; and, if we could go deep enough, we should find some
such rock as granite underneath the other rocks all the world over.
The other rocks, such as the sandstones and clays, are called
Sedimentary rocks, because they are formed of sediment, material
carried by the sea and rivers, and dropped to the bottom. They are
also called Stratified rocks, because they are formed of Strata,
_i.e._, beds or layers, as we see in cliff and quarry.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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