Beagle Expedition (1831-1836); Geology -- South America; Volcanoes
calcareous matter: in neither of these cases could heat have acted.)
To return to the two craters: one of them stands at the distance of a
league from the coast, the intervening tract consisting of a calcareous
tuff, apparently of submarine origin. This crater consists of a circle
of hills some of which stand quite detached, but all have a very
regular, qua- qua versal dip, at an inclination of between thirty and
forty degrees. The lower beds, to the thickness of several hundred
feet, consist of the resin- like stone, with embedded fragments of
lava. The upper beds, which are between thirty and forty feet in
thickness, are composed of a thinly stratified, fine-grained, harsh,
friable, brown-coloured tuff, or peperino. (Those geologists who
restrict the term of “tuff” to ashes of a white colour, resulting from
the attrition of feldspathic lavas, would call these brown-coloured
strata “peperino.”) A central mass without any stratification, which
must formerly have occupied the hollow of the crater, but is now
attached only to a few of the circumferential hills, consists of a
tuff, intermediate in character between that with a resin-like, and
that with an earthy fracture. This mass contains white calcareous
matter in small patches. The second crater (520 feet in height) must
have existed until the eruption of a recent, great stream of lava, as a
separate islet; a fine section, worn by the sea, shows a grand
funnel-shaped mass of basalt, surrounded by steep, sloping flanks of
tuff, having in parts an earthy, and in others a semi-resinous
fracture. The tuff is traversed by several broad, vertical dikes, with
smooth and parallel sides, which I did not doubt were formed of basalt,
until I actually broke off fragments. These dikes, however, consist of
tuff like that of the surrounding strata, but more compact, and with a
smoother fracture; hence we must conclude, that fissures were formed
and filled up with the finer mud or tuff from the crater, before its
interior was occupied, as it now is, by a solidified pool of basalt.
Other fissures have been subsequently formed, parallel to these
singular dikes, and are merely filled with loose rubbish. The change
from ordinary scoriaceous particles to the substance with a
semi-resinous fracture, could be clearly followed in portions of the
compact tuff of these dikes.
(FIGURE 12. THE KICKER ROCK, 400 FEET HIGH.)
At the distance of a few miles from these two craters, stands the
Kicker Rock, or islet, remarkable from its singular form. It is
unstratified, and is composed of compact tuff, in parts having the
resin-like fracture. It is probable that this amorphous mass, like that
similar mass in the case first described, once filled up the central
hollow of a crater, and that its flanks, or sloping walls, have since
been worn quite away by the sea, in which it stands exposed.
SMALL BASALTIC CRATERS.
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