Beagle Expedition (1831-1836); Geology -- South America; Volcanoes
In the valley of Tia-auru, the commonest rocks are basalts with much
olivine, and in some cases almost composed of large crystals of augite.
I picked up some specimens, with much glassy feldspar, approaching in
character to trachyte. There were also many large blocks of vesicular
basalt, with the cavities beautifully lined with chabasie (?), and
radiating bundles of mesotype. Some of these specimens presented a
curious appearance, owing to a number of the vesicles being half filled
up with a white, soft, earthy mesotypic mineral, which intumesced under
the blowpipe in a remarkable manner. As the upper surfaces in all the
half-filled cells are exactly parallel, it is evident that this
substance has sunk to the bottom of each cell from its weight.
Sometimes, however, it entirely fills the cells. Other cells are either
quite filled, or lined, with small crystals, apparently of chabasie;
these crystals, also, frequently line the upper half of the cells
partly filled with the earthy mineral, as well as the upper surface of
this substance itself, in which case the two minerals appear to blend
into each other. I have never seen any other amygdaloid with the cells
half filled in the manner here described; and it is difficult to
imagine the causes which determined the earthy mineral to sink from its
gravity to the bottom of the cells, and the crystalline mineral to
adhere in a coating of equal thickness round the sides of the cells.
(MacCulloch, however, has described and given a plate of (“Geolog.
Trans.” 1st series volume 4 page 225) a trap rock, with cavities filled
up horizontally with quartz and chalcedony. The upper halves of these
cavities are often filled by layers, which follow each irregularity of
the surface, and by little depending stalactites of the same siliceous
substances.)
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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