Beagle Expedition (1831-1836); Geology -- South America; Volcanoes
About a mile southward of Banks’ Cove, there is a fine elliptic crater,
about five hundred feet in depth, and three-quarters of a mile in
diameter. Its bottom is occupied by a lake of brine, out of which some
little crateriform hills of tuff rise. The lower beds are formed of
compact tuff, appearing like a subaqueous deposit; whilst the upper
beds, round the entire circumference, consist of a harsh, friable tuff,
of little specific gravity, but often containing fragments of rock in
layers. This upper tuff contains numerous pisolitic balls, about the
size of small bullets, which differ from the surrounding matter, only
in being slightly harder and finer grained. The beds dip away very
regularly on all sides, at angles varying, as I found by measurement,
from twenty-five to thirty degrees. The external surface of the crater
slopes at a nearly similar inclination, and is formed by slightly
convex ribs, like those on the shell of a pecten or scallop, which
become broader as they extend from the mouth of the crater to its base.
These ribs are generally from eight to twenty feet in breadth, but
sometimes they are as much as forty feet broad; and they resemble old,
plastered, much flattened vaults, with the plaster scaling off in
plates: they are separated from each other by gullies, deepened by
alluvial action. At their upper and narrow ends, near the mouth of the
crater, these ribs often consist of real hollow passages, like, but
rather smaller than, those often formed by the cooling of the crust of
a lava-stream, whilst the inner parts have flowed onward;—of which
structure I saw many examples at Chatham Island. There can be no doubt
but that these hollow ribs or vaults have been formed in a similar
manner, namely, by the setting or hardening of a superficial crust on
streams of mud, which have flowed down from the upper part of the
crater. In another part of this same crater, I saw open concave gutters
between one and two feet wide, which appear to have been formed by the
hardening of the lower surface of a mud stream, instead of, as in the
former case, of the upper surface. From these facts I think it is
certain that the tuff must have flowed as mud. (This conclusion is of
some interest, because M. Dufrenoy “Mem. pour servir” tome 4 page 274,
has argued from strata of tuff, apparently of similar composition with
that here described, being inclined at angles between 18 degrees and 20
degrees, that Monte Nuevo and some other craters of Southern Italy have
been formed by upheaval. From the facts given above, of the vaulted
character of the separate rills, and from the tuff not extending in
horizontal sheets round these crateriform hills, no one will suppose
that the strata have here been produced by elevation; and yet we see
that their inclination is above 20 degrees, and often as much as 30
degrees. The consolidated strata also, of the internal talus, as will
be immediately seen, dips at an angle of above 30 degrees.) This mud
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