Beagle Expedition (1831-1836); Geology -- South America; Volcanoes
In the lava and in the scoriae of this little crater, I found several
fragments, which, from their angular form, their granular structure,
their freedom from air-cells, their brittle and burnt condition,
closely resembled those fragments of primary rocks which are
occasionally ejected, as at Ascension, from volcanoes. These fragments
consist of glassy albite, much mackled, and with very imperfect
cleavages, mingled with semi-rounded grains, having tarnished, glossy
surfaces, of a steel-blue mineral. The crystals of albite are coated by
a red oxide of iron, appearing like a residual substance; and their
cleavage-planes also are sometimes separated by excessively fine layers
of this oxide, giving to the crystals the appearance of being ruled
like a glass micrometer. There was no quartz. The steel-blue mineral,
which is abundant in the pinnacle, but which disappears in the streams
derived from the pinnacle, has a fused appearance, and rarely presents
even a trace of cleavage; I obtained, however, one measurement, which
proved that it was augite; and in one other fragment, which differed
from the others, in being slightly cellular, and in gradually blending
into the surrounding matrix the small grains of this mineral were
tolerably well crystallised. Although there is so wide a difference in
appearance between the lava of the little streams, and especially of
their red scoriaceous crusts, and one of these angular ejected
fragments, which at first sight might readily be mistaken for syenite,
yet I believe that the lava has originated from the melting and
movement of a mass of rock of absolutely similar composition with the
fragments. Besides the specimen above alluded to, in which we see a
fragment becoming slightly cellular, and blending into the surrounding
matrix, some of the grains of the steel-blue augite also have their
surfaces becoming very finely vesicular, and passing into the nature of
the surrounding paste; other grains are throughout, in an intermediate
condition. The paste seems to consist of the augite more perfectly
fused, or, more probably, merely disturbed in its softened state by the
movement of the mass, and mingled with the oxide of iron and with
finely comminuted, glassy albite. Hence probably it is that the fused
albite, which is abundant in the pinnacle, disappears in the streams.
The albite is in exactly the same state, with the exception of most of
the crystals being smaller in the lava and in the embedded fragments;
but in the fragments they appear to be less abundant: this, however,
would naturally happen from the intumescence of the augitic base, and
its consequent apparent increase in bulk. It is interesting thus to
trace the steps by which a compact granular rock becomes converted into
a vesicular, pseudo-porphyritic lava, and finally into red scoriae. The
structure and composition of the embedded fragments show that they are
parts either of a mass of primary rock which has undergone considerable
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